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‘But on this day?’ Neerak demanded, spinning to face her. ‘Why? What has changed?’
Glyph answered. ‘I spoke with the Watch. I asked him, do we begin our war today?’
‘He told us to kill the scouts,’ Lahanis said. ‘The war indeed begins. Glyph, he is a priest. I care not what title you give him, but he walks more than one world. Today, by his blessing, we become an army.’
He stared into her eyes, and saw in their eager light the promise of fire and destruction.
The Last Fish, who now walks, seeking an old enemy. The lake lies almost forgotten, the leagues uncountable between it and where he now stands. The water, he recalls now, was clear. Nothing in it to blind him to his future, a future awash in tears. From water he left, to water he must go. I end where I began. ‘The war claims us now,’ he said. He collected up his bow. ‘By the blessing of the Watch, we are made into slayers of men and women. Come, then. This forest is our home. Time to defend it.’
Pulling up the cloth that masked his face beneath his eyes, he set out, his pack close behind him.
They moved quickly, upon old trails, hunched down beneath tangles of overgrowth canopying the animal tracks. Theirs was a run that devoured leagues. It flowed swiftly but made little sound, the snow taking their footfalls, the shadows of branches and boles scattering their own shadows as they raced onward. The secret of subterfuge was to move as if one belonged, to fight against nothing, bending and dipping, shifting where needed.
It was near dusk when Glyph, still in the lead, caught sight ahead of figures, three in all, drawn together as if in consultation. Their bulks betrayed their presence, along with the glint of iron buckles, an inverted strip of hide, and plumes of breath from unguarded mouths as they spoke in whispers. When one caught the fluid approach of Glyph and his hunters, he cried out and drew out his sword.
Glyph’s arrow sank into his right eye, dropping him instantly.
Two more arrows followed, hissing past Glyph.
Both surviving scouts went down.
The hunters reached the bodies, flowed over them like water, pausing only to cut free arrows. Lahanis pushed close to make certain the scouts no longer lived, but Glyph knew that was unnecessary. All three were dead before they struck the snowy ground. He continued on, shaking the gore from his arrow. The shaft was splintered, the iron point bent where it had struck the inside of the man’s skull. Still padding through the forest, Glyph worked loose the point and slipped it into a pouch at his belt, to be hammered straight later. He then snapped the shaft just below the fletching, and pocketed the end as well, before flinging away what remained.
They rushed on, as the dusk slowly closed around them.
It was as before. My first time, when they sat about a fire and laughed and flirted with the woman in their company. Nothing of them reached the place inside me. Nothing to invite sympathy, nothing to blunt my cold, sharp need for their deaths.
Slayers of children. If the blood not upon their own hands, then upon the uniform. They claimed the standard and wore upon their shoulders the banner that belonged to butchers. I felt nothing killing them. I felt nothing sending a flint arrow into the gut of the last one. I felt nothing chasing him down.
This must be how soldiers think. It could not be otherwise, for what kind of person murders a child? Defenceless elders? Hearth-wives and hearth-husbands?
What kind of person?
Why, the one I am become.
Do I mock myself now, if I say that I will hunt the uniform, slay the uniform? That the uniform is my enemy, mere cuts and hues of cloth and leather, a lifeless thing of belts, buckles and wool? Or is this my only path, my only hope to remain sane?
This, then, must be war. And what begins without must also begin within.
It was well, he reflected as he rushed on into the night, that he was reborn, for surely his old self must be dead by now, fatally wounded by grief and horror.
The lake water was once clear, but now, oh now, now it runs red.
Yedan Narad, I see what haunts you. For you, and all that you see of what awaits us, my chest now aches.
Behind him, close, Lahanis said in a hiss, ‘Wound the next one, lord. My knives thirst.’
And he nodded. For it was best if they all drank.
Like stained water, they flowed dark through the forest, while above them the sky groped towards night. They travelled a shadow world.
It was a night for killing, and kill they did.
* * *
Higher Grace Sheccanto was propped up in her bed, like a corpse bound to the headrest. Pillows were stuffed against her sides to keep her upright, and her head had a habit of dipping, even when she was speaking, until such time as her chin reached her breastbone and her words became incomprehensible. A young acolyte sat upon the bed, close by, ready to help the old woman lift her head once more. Despite this diligence, the words Sheccanto said made little sense.
Warlock Resh sat leaning forward, forearms upon his thighs, in an effort to hear – and understand – the Higher Grace. Finarra Stone stood a few paces back, having already surrendered the task. This, she well understood, would be her last audience with Sheccanto. The Shake might well remain hale in body, but the crown upon the head was broken, if not entirely lost.
