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‘Why?’
‘We seek a Bonecaster,’ Dathenar said. ‘It will be understood,’ he added, ‘that a demon possesses Rance, one that needs to be exorcized. But this ritual – and comprehend well what I mean here, both of you – will speak in answer not just to Rance, but to the prisoners – every prisoner – and, indeed, to the Hust Legion itself.’
‘The demons need exposing,’ said Prazek. ‘Dragged into the day, as it were.’
‘And then extirpated.’
Wareth stared at the two men. ‘Dog-Runners? Sirs, we are soldiers in the service of Mother Dark. You would invite a witch of the Dog-Runners? We are the Hust Legion!’
‘Indeed,’ said Dathenar. ‘And as it stands, lieutenant, we are also, to not put too fine a point on it, royally fucked.’
‘We believe,’ added Prazek, ‘that Galar Baras will return with Commander Toras Redone. What of her demons, lieutenant?’
‘But our goddess—’
Prazek leaned forward, his eyes suddenly hard. ‘A ritual, sir, to make the iron howl. Until we turn about this imbalance of power, until we stand as masters over our own blades, over the links sheathing us, we are nothing. The crimes crowding us are vast, countless, of such myriad details as to paralyse us all. This legion, and all within it, needs purging.’ He nodded, not without sympathy, towards Rance. ‘And she will lead us. Face to face with what she was, and is. A child-slayer.’
Faror Hend remained at a distance, but within sight of the tent entrance, and watched as Rance emerged. The woman seemed almost too weak to remain upright, and when Wareth appeared, moving quickly to take her weight, she pushed him away and stumbled into an alley, where she fell to her knees and was sick.
Prazek and Dathenar had sent Listar away in the depth of the night just past. Upon one horse, with two more trailing, the man had set out on to the plain.
There were many rituals in the world, private and public, honest and false. At some point, in each and every one, some kind of transformation was invited in the participant, to be embraced with belief. And, at that same instant, those who were there to observe were in turn invited into participation, and with it, that selfsame belief.
She understood all of that. A mirror was held up, one purporting a truth that could be hitherto believed hidden, unseen, or simply unrecognized. And a single step was invited, from one reflection into the other. In this step, she knew, an entire world could change. Irrevocably.
Listar, haunted man, wearing his accusation as if it truly fitted him, rode to find a witch, or a shaman – a Bonecaster of the Dog-Runners, a people unlike the Tiste, a people brushing shoulders with something wild and primitive.
Rituals. Spirits of earth and sky, of water and blood. Headdresses of antler and horn, furs of the hunter and hide of the hunted. This shall be the Legion’s own mirror.
Mother Dark, where are you in all of this?
The morning was bright and cold. Upon the camp, along every pathway and track, smoke hung in wreaths low over the frozen ground, as the Legion wakened to the new day.
SIXTEEN
‘IT IS OUR CURSE, ONCE WE ARE PAST CHILDHOOD, TO LOOK UPON innocence through a veil of sorrow.’
Standing bes
ide Lord Anomander as they gazed out across the landscape, Ivis grunted. ‘Milord, it’s only what we’ve lost that makes innocence sting so.’
Their breaths plumed, quickly whipped away in the building north wind. The day’s eerie gloom was deepening.
After a moment, Anomander shook his head. ‘I would hold, my friend, that what you describe is but one side of the matter, and indeed one that looks only inward, as if the borders of your life enclose everything to be valued, while what lies beyond is of no worth whatsoever.’
‘Perhaps I misunderstood, milord.’
‘Consider this, Ivis. The sorrow belongs also to our sense of what awaits that child. The harsh lessons, the wounds taken and felt but not yet understood, the losses and the failures – those the child is destined to make, and those made by others. The battering of belief, and the loss of faith, which begins with oneself and then comes, in a relentless storm, from loved ones – parents, tutors or guardians. By such wounding is innocence lost.’
Thinking on his own childhood, Ivis grunted.
Anomander sighed, and then said, ‘Sympathy is not a weakness, Ivis. To grieve for the loss of innocence is to remind yourself that yours is not the only life in this world.’
Before them, from this height of the tower, the forest to the north was a matt, greyish dun, its canopy of twigs and branches like a rumpled carpet of thorns. Bruised clouds were smeared across the sky above the trees, the hue of iron. The icy spit in the wind stung the face. Snow was coming.
‘There is no other path possible,’ Ivis said after a time. ‘We are hardened to the ways of living, and of life itself. These things cannot be avoided, milord. In any case, from what we’ve heard, young Wreneck has already had more than his share of suffering.’
‘And yet, has he once uttered a question about any of it, Ivis? Has he ever voiced in wonder why things are as they are?’
