He sheathed his knives in a single, fluid motion, rose to his feet and faced her.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What now?’
Broken pillars of mortared stone jutted from the undulating vista. Among the half-dozen or so within sight, only two rose as tall as a man, and none stood straight. The plain’s strange, colourless grasses gathered in tufts around their bases, snarled and oily in the grey, grainy air.
As Kalam rode into their midst, the muted thunder of his horse’s hoofs seemed to bounce back across his path, the echoes multiplying until he felt as if he was riding at the head of a mounted army. He slowed his charger’s canter, finally reining in beside one of the battered columns.
These silent sentinels felt like an intrusion on the solitude he had been seeking. He leaned in his saddle to study the one nearest him. It looked old, old in the way of so many things within the Warren of Shadow, forlorn with an air of abandonment, defying any chance he might have of discerning its function. There were no intervening ruins, no foundation walls, no cellar pits or other angular pocks in the ground. Each pillar stood alone, unaligned.
His examination settled on a rusted ring set into the stone near the base, from which depended a chain of seized links vanishing into the tufts of grass. After a moment, Kalam dismounted. He crouched down, reaching out to close his hand on the chain. A slight upward tug. The desiccated hand and forearm of some hapless creature lifted from the grasses. Dagger-length talons, four fingers and two thumbs.
The rest of the prisoner had succumbed to the roots, was half buried beneath dun-coloured, sandy soil. Pallid yellow hair was entwined among the grass blades.
The hand suddenly twitched.
Disgusted, Kalam released the chain. The arm dropped back to the ground. A faint, subterranean keening sound rose from the base of the pillar.
Straightening, the assassin returned to his horse.
Pillars, columns, tree stumps, platforms, staircases leading nowhere, and for every dozen there was one among them holding a prisoner. None of whom seemed capable of dying. Not entirely. Oh, their minds had died-most of them-long ago. Raving in tongues, murmuring senseless incantations, begging forgiveness, offering bargains, though not one had yet-within Kalam’s hearing-proclaimed its own innocence.
As if mercy could be an issue without it . He nudged his horse forward once more. This was not a realm to his liking. Not that he’d in truth had much choice in the matter. Bargaining with gods was-for the mortal involved-an exercise in self-delusion. Kalam would rather leave Quick Ben to play games with the rulers of this warren-the wizard had the advantage of enjoying the challenge-no, it was more than that. Quick Ben had left so many knives in so many backs-none of them fatal but none the less sure to sting when tugged, and it was that tugging the wizard loved so much.
The assassin wondered where his old friend was right now. There’d been trouble- nothing new there- and, since then, naught but silence. And then there was Fiddler. The fool had re-enlisted, for Hood’s sake! Well, at least they’re doing something. Not Kalam, oh no, not Kalam . Thirteen hundred children, resurrected on a whim. Shining eyes following his every move, mapping his every step, memorizing his every gesture-what could he teach them? The art of mayhem? As if children needed help in that.
A ridge lay ahead. He reached the base and brought his horse into a gentle canter up the slope.
Besides, Minala seemed to have it all under control. A natural born tyrant, she was, both in public and in private amidst the bedrolls in the half-ruined hovel they shared. And oddly enough, he’d found he was not averse to tyranny. In principle, that is. Things had a way of actually working when someone capable and implacable took charge. And he’d had enough experience taking orders to not chafe at her position of command. Between her and the aptorian demoness, a certain measure of control was being maintained, a host of life skills were being inculcated… stealth, tracking, the laying of ambushes, the setting of traps for game both two- and four-legged, riding, scaling walls, freezing in place, knife throwing and countless other weapon skills, the weapons themselves donated by the warren’s mad rulers-half of them cursed or haunted or fashioned for entirely unhuman hands . The children took to such training with frightening zeal, and the gleam of pride in Minala’s eyes left the assassin… chilled.
An army in the making for Shadowthrone. An alarming prospect, to say the least.
He reached the ridge. And suddenly reined in.
An enormous stone gate surmounted the hill opposite, twin pillars spanned by an arch. Within it, a swirling grey wall. On this side of the gate, the grassy summit flowed with countless, sourceless shadows, as if they were somehow tumbling out from the portal, only to swarm like lost wraiths around its threshold.