Tool came to the base of the hill and waited for the Adjunct to arrive.
Lorn saw, at Tool's hide-wrapped feet, a grey rock jutting perhaps ten inches from the earth.
“Adjunct,” the Imass said, “this is the barrow marker we seek.”
She raised an eyebrow. “There's hardly any soil cover here at all,” she said. “Are you suggesting this standing stone has eroded down to its present size?”
“The stone has not eroded,” Tool answered. “It has stood here since before the sheets of ice came to cover this land. It stood here when the Rhivi Plain was an inland sea, long before the waters withdrew to what I is now Lake Azur. Adjunct, the stone is in fact taller than both of us combined, and what you think to be bedrock is shale.”
Lorn was surprised at the hint of anger in Tool's voice. She dismounted and set to hobbling the horses. “How long do we stay here, then?”
“Until this evening passes. With tomorrow's dawn I will open the way, Adjunct.”
Faintly from above came the cries of ravens. Lorn lifted her head and gazed at the specks wheeling high over them. They'd been with them for days. Was that unusual? She didn't know. Shrugging, she unsaddled the horses.
The Imass remained motionless, his gaze seeming fixed on the stone marker.
Lorn went about preparing her camp. Among the scrub oaks she found wood for a small cooking fire. It was dry, weathered and likely to yield little smoke. Though she did not anticipate company, caution had become her habit. Before dusk arrived she found a nearby hill higher than those around it, and ascended to its summit. From this position she commanded a view that encompassed leagues on all sides. The hills continued their roll southward, sinking to steppes to the south-east.
Due east of them stretched Catlin Plain, empty of life as far as she could see.
Lorn turned to the north. The forest they had travelled round a few days ago was still visible, a dark line thickening as it swept westward to the Tahlyn Mountains. She sat down and waited for night to fall. It was then that she'd be able to spot any campfires.
Even as night fell, the heat remained oppressive. Lorn walked around the hill's summit to stretch her legs. She found evidence of past excavations, scars that dug into the shale. And evidence of the Gadrobi herders remained, from as far back as when they fashioned stone tools.
Against the south side of the hill the ground had been carved out, not in search of a barrow but as a stone quarry. It appeared that beneath the shale was flint, chocolate brown, sharp-edged and crusted in white chalk.
Curious, Lorn investigated further, scrambling down into the cavity.
Stone flakes carpeted the pit's base. She crouched and picked up a piece of flint. It was the tip of a spear point, expertly shaped.
The echo of this technology was found in Tool's chalcedony sword. She needed no further proof of the Imass's assertions. Humans had indeed come from them, had indeed inherited a world.
Empire was a part of them, a legacy flowing like blood through human muscle, bone and brain. But such a thing could easily be seen as a curse.
Were they destined one day to become human versions of the T'lan Imass? Was war all there was? Would they bow to it in immortal Lorn sat down in the quarry and leaned against the chiselled weathered stone. The Imass had conducted a war of extermination lasting hundreds of thousands of years. Who or what had the Jaghut been?
According to Tool, they'd abandoned the concept of government, and turned their backs on empires, on armies, on the cycles of rise and fall fire and rebirth. They'd walked alone disdainful of their own kind, dismissive of community, of purposes greater than themselves. They would not, she realized, have started a war.
“Oh, Laseen,” she murmured, tears welling in her eyes, “I know why we fear this Jaghut Tyrant. Because he became human, he became like us he enslaved, he destroyed, and he did it better than we could.” She lowered She fell silent then, letting the tears roll down her cheeks, seep betweer her fingers, trickle along her wrists. Who wept from her eyes? she wondered. Was it Lorn, or Laseen? Or was it for our kind? What did it matter? Such tears had been shed before, and would be again-by other like her and yet unlike her. And the winds would dry them all.
Captain Paran glanced at his companion. “You've got a theory about al” Toc the Younger scratched his scar. “Damned if I know, Captain.” He stared down at the black, burned, crusted raven lying on the ground in front of them. “I've been counting, though. That's the eleventh roasted bird in the last three hours. And, unless they're covering the Rhivi plain like some bloody carpet, it seems we're on somebody's trail.” Paran grunted, then kicked his horse forward.
