The old woman was still staring at her blackened hands, as if willing them to move, but the swollen digits were curled into lifeless hooks. Her face twisted in frustration.
‘Will you help me raise her cairn?’
‘Of course.’
Ralata finally nodded.
Draconus walked up to Sekara. He gently lowered the woman’s hands, and then set his own to either side of her face. Her manic eyes darted and then suddenly fixed on his. At the last instant, he saw in them something like recognition. Terror, her mouth opening-
A swift snap to one side broke the neck. The woman slumped, still gaping, eyes holding on his even as he slowly lowered her to the ground. A few breaths later and the life left that accusing, horror-filled stare. Straightening, he stepped back, faced the others. ‘It is done.’
‘I’ll go find some stones,’ said Ublala. ‘I’m good at graves and stuff. And then, Ralata, I will show you the horse and you’ll be so happy.’
The woman frowned. ‘Horse? What horse?’
‘What Stooply the Whore calls it, the thing between my legs. My bucking horse. The one-eyed river eel. The Smart Woman’s Dream, what Shurq Elalle calls it. Women give it all sorts of names, but they all smile when they say them. You can give it any name you want and you’ll be smiling, too. You’ll see.’
Ralata stared after the Toblakai as he set off in search of stones, and then she turned to Draconus. ‘He’s but a child-’
‘Only in his thoughts,’ Draconus said. ‘I have seen him stripped down.’
‘If he tries-if either of you tries to rape me, I’ll kill you.’
‘He won’t. Nor will I. You are welcome to journey with us-we are travelling east-the same direction as the Barghast I saw. Perhaps indeed we will catch up to them, or at least cross their trail once more.’
‘What is that meat on the fire?’ she asked, drawing closer.
‘Bhederin.’
‘There are none in the Wastelands.’
Draconus shrugged.
Still she hesitated, and then she said, ‘I am hunting a demon. Winged. It murdered my friends.’
‘How are you able to track this winged demon, Ralata?’
‘It kills everything in its path. That’s a trail I can follow.’
‘I have seen no such signs.’
‘Nor I of late,’ she admitted. ‘Not for the past two days, since I found Sekara, in fact. But the path seems to be eastward, so I will go in that direction. If I find these other Barghast, all the better. If not, my hunt continues.’
‘Understood,’ he replied. ‘Now, will you join me in some ale?’
She spoke behind him as he crouched to pour the amber liquid into two pewter tankards. ‘I mean to bury her with those rings, Draconus.’
‘We are not thieves,’ he replied.
‘Good.’
She accepted the tankard he lifted to her.
Ublala returned with an armload of boulders.
‘Ublala,’ said Draconus, ‘save showing your horse for later.’
The huge man’s face fell, and then he brightened again. ‘All right. It’s more exciting in the dark anyway.’
Strahl had never desired to be Warleader of the Senan. It had been easier feeding himself ambitions he had believed for ever beyond reach, a simple and mostly harmless bolstering of his own ego, giving him a place alongside the other warriors opposed to Onos T’oolan, just one among a powerful, influential cadre of ranking Barghast. He had enjoyed that power and all the privileges it delivered. He had especially revelled in his hoard of hatred, a currency of endless value, and to spend it cost him nothing, no matter how profligate he was. Such a warrior was swollen, well protected behind a shield of contempt. And when shields locked, the wall was impregnable.
But now he was alone. His hoard had vanished-he’d not even seen the scores of hands reaching in behind his back. A warleader’s only wealth was the value of his or her word. Lies sucked the colour from gold. Truth was the hardest and purest and rarest metal of all.
There had been an instant, a single, blinding instant, when he’d stood before his tribe, raising high that truth, forged by hands grown cold. He had claimed it for his own, and in turn his kin had met his eyes, and they had answered in kind. But even then, in his mouth there had been the taste of ashes. Was he nothing more than the voice of the dead? Of fallen warriors who each in turn had been greater than Strahl could ever hope to be? He could voice their desire-and he had done precisely that-but he could not think their thoughts, and so they could not help him, not here, not now. He was left with the paltry confusions of his own mind, and it was not enough.
