Something was wrong. Wolves? The Bluerose cavalry the foreman kept under contract had hunted the local ones down long ago. Even the coyotes had been driven away, as had the bears.
Abasard crept forward, his mouth suddenly dry, his heart pounding hard in his chest.
His free hand, reaching out before him, came into contact with soft, warm fur. One of his dogs, lying motionless, still under his probing touch. Near its neck, the fur was wet. He reached down along it until his fingers sank into torn flesh where its throat should have been. The wound was ragged. Wolf. Or one of those striped cats. But of the latter he had only ever seen skins, and those came from the far south, near Bolkando Kingdom.
Truly frightened now, he continued on, and moments later found his other dog. This one had a broken neck. The two attacks, he realized, had to have been made simultaneously, else one or the other of the beasts would have barked.
A broken neck… but no other wounds, no slather of saliva on the fur.
The rodara heaved a half-dozen paces to one side again, and he could make out, at the very edge of his vision, their heads lifted on their long necks, their ears upright. Yet no fear-sounds came from them. So, no dangerous scent, no panic-someone has their attention. Someone they’re used to obeying.
There was no mistaking this-the herd was being stolen. Abasard could not believe it. He turned about, retracing his route. Twenty paces of silent footfalls later, he set out into a run-back to the camp.
Redmask’s whip snaked out to wrap round the shepherd’s neck-the old Letherii had been standing, outlined well against the dark, staring mutely at the now-moving herd. A sharp tug from Redmask and the shepherd’s head rolled from the shoulders, the body-arms jerking momentarily out to the sides-falling to one side.
The last of them, Redmask knew, as he moved up. Barring one, who had been smart enough to flee, although that would not save him in the end. Well, invaders had to accept the risks-they were thieves as well, weren’t they? Luxuriating in their unearned wealth, squatting on land not their own, arrogant enough to demand that it change to suit their purposes. As good as pissing on the spirits in the earth-one paid for such temerity and blasphemy.
He pushed away that last thought as unworthy. The spirits could take care of themselves, and they would deliver their own vengeance, in time-for they were as patient as they were inexorable. It was not for Redmask to act on behalf of those spirits. No, that form of righteousness was both unnecessary and disingenuous. The truth was this: Redmask enjoyed being the hand of Awl vengeance. Personal and, accordingly, all the more delicious.
He had already begun his killing of the Letherii, back in Drene.
Drawing his knife as he crouched over the old man’s severed head, he cut off the Letherii’s face, rolled it up and stored it with the others in the salt-crusted bag at his hip.
Most of the herd dogs had submitted to the Awl dray’s challenge-they now followed the larger, nastier beast as it worked to waken the entire herd, then drive it en masse eastward.
Straightening, Redmask turned as the first screams erupted from the drover camp.
Abasard was still forty paces from the camp when he saw one of the tents collapse to one side, poles and guides snapping, as an enormous two-legged creature thumped over it, talons punching through to the struggling forms beneath, and screams tore through the air. Head swivelling to one side, the fiend continued on in its loping, stiff-tailed gait. There were huge swords in its hands.
Another one crossed its path, fast, low, heading for the foreman’s house. Abasard saw a figure dart from this second beast’s path-but not quickly enough, as its head snapped forward, twisting so that its jaws closed to either side of the man’s head. Whereupon the reptile threw the flailing form upward in a bone-breaking surge. The limp corpse sailed in the air, landing hard and rolling into the hearth fire in a spray of sparks.
Abasard stood, paralysed by the horror of the slaughter he saw before him. He had recognized that man. Another Indebted, a man who had been courting one of his aunts, a man who always seemed to be laughing.
Another figure caught his eye. His baby sister, ten years old, racing out from the camp-away from another tent whose inhabitants were dying beneath chopping swords-our tent. Father-
The reptile lifted its head, saw his sister’s fleeting form, and surged after her.
All at once, Abasard found himself running, straight for the monstrous creature.
If it saw him converging, it was indifferent-until the very last moment, as Abasard raised his staff to swing overhand, hoping to strike the beast on its hind leg, imagining bones breaking-
The nearer sword lashed out, so fast, so-
