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‘It is my suspicion, Ivis,’ said Anomander in a low voice, ‘that they have always been among us. Unseen for the most part. But in their machinations we are tossed and turned like blindfolded fools.’
The notion rattled Ivis. He combed through his beard, felt ice crystals beneath his fingernails, and then spat to one side. ‘I would we turned on them, milord, if what you say is true.’
‘You would either way,’ Anomander retorted, with some amusement in his tone.
‘My lord’s keep is in ruin,’ Ivis said in a growl. ‘An ancient edifice and ancestral home, brought down in a single night. Was there no other means of dealing with the daughters? Fire and smoke, the tumbling of walls, and such a maelstrom of sorcery as to make me sick with fear for the future.’
Anomander sighed. ‘Just so, Ivis. Yet, did I not bait him? The fault is mine, captain, and I will make that plain to your lord.’
‘You dismiss the threat posed by Envy and Spite.’
‘As any sober reflection would lead us to do, Ivis. No matter their power, their minds remained those of children. The sorcery indeed lent claws to their impulses, a lesson we are all obliged to heed, given the child within each of us. But in truth, old friend, I anticipated an emasculation, a reducing of the threat in a manner more civilized than what we were witness to.’ He shook his head. ‘It was a brutal night, and the shock of it reverberates still.’
‘Sorcery, milord, lacks all subtlety.’
‘As will any force wielded without restraint. And here, Ivis, you set your knife-point into the heart of my dread. I despise the use of the fist, when a caress would better serve.’
‘These Azathanai see it differently, milord.’
‘So it seems. And yet T’riss affected a simple touch, and see now its consequences. I have thought,’ Anomander added with a bitter laugh, ‘my loyalty’s abiding would have seen off this silver hue upon my mane, but she would see me set apart, and that I must now live with.’
‘There was a spirit, milord, within the fire—’
‘Brood spoke of her, yes. Olar Ethil, a matron of the Dog-Runners.’
‘An Azathanai.’
‘If the title means anything, then yes, an Azathanai.’
‘She offered the ecstasy of destruction, milord.’
‘As would any creature of flames.’
‘And desire,’ Ivis added. ‘You speak of caresses, but I tell you, I now live with the curse of such a caress.’
Ahead the trees thinned, revealing part of a glade. The grackle and murmur of ravens descended from the bared branches on all sides, whilst black shapes danced on the churned-up, frozen snow between dark huddled forms. The cold air held the stink of bile and faeces.
Drawing closer, silent now, they reached the glade’s edge and looked out upon scores of corpses, many stripped down near naked, their flesh frozen black, the wounds and gaping holes pecked open, purple-hued and glistening with frost.
‘Their skin misleads,’ said Ivis. ‘These dead are Liosan.’
‘Fleeing Liosan, sir,’ Gazzan added. ‘Struck from behind as they ran. Axe and spear, and arrows. Broken, sir, in a rout.’
‘The Deniers,’ someone muttered from the squad, ‘have found their teeth.’
‘Or the monks have finally ventured out to their flock,’ Ivis said. ‘And yet … arrows. Nothing noble in that.’
Anomander’s breath hissed out in a plume that swept ghost-like into the glade. ‘The nobility adhered to by the Legion slaughtering peasants in the woods, captain?’
‘A crime demanding—’
‘A crime, sir? Is this how we are to divide the blood on our hands? One side just, the other an outrage? Best take a blade to ensure the distinction, and cleave to the cause with a sure eye! But I tell you this: history’s unbidden gaze shall not be given leave to turn away, not by absolving words or the cynical dip into semantics. Remember what you see here, captain, and leave every excuse upon the ground. A life defending itself has right to any means, be they teeth and nails, or arrows.’
‘Then will atrocity be met with atrocity, milord? How swift our descent to the savage!’
Anomander waved a dismissive hand. ‘Best be clear-eyed on that truth, sir, and see the descent for what it is.’ He faced Ivis with fierceness burning in his eyes. ‘We knew war directly, the two of us. In the slaying and the slaughter, savagery was our lover, locked step in step with our relentless advance. Do you deny it?’
‘The cause was just—’
