‘Quick’s not dead,’ Cuttle said. ‘There was more after you’d left-I heard from my tent. Tayschrenn’s made your wizard a High Mage.’
‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me, actually. That he’d survive, somehow. I wonder if Paran was still the company’s captain-’
‘He was. Died with them.’
‘The Adjunct’s brother. I wonder if she grieves this night.’
‘Wondering’s a waste of time, Fiddler. We got lads and lasses that need taking care of, right here. Korbolo Dom’s warriors know how to fight. My guess is, we’ll get whipped and sent back with our tails between our legs-and it’ll be another chain, as we stagger back to Aren, only this time we won’t get even close.’
‘Well, that’s a cheering prediction, Cuttle.’
‘It don’t matter. So long as I kill that Napan traitor-and his mage, too, if possible.’
‘And what if you can’t get close?’
‘Then I take as many of them with me as I can. I ain’t walking back, Fid, not again.’
‘I’ll remember that if the moment arrives. But what about taking care of these recruits of ours, Cuttle?’
‘Well, that’s the walk, isn’t it? This march. We deliver them to that battle, we do that much, if we can. Then we see what kind of iron they’re holding.’
‘Iron,’ Strings smiled. ‘It’s been a long time since I last heard that saying. Since we’re looking for revenge, you’ll want it hot, I expect.’
‘You expect wrong. Look at Tavore-there won’t be any heat from her. In that she’s just like Coltaine. It’s obvious, Fiddler. The iron needs to be cold. Cold. We get it cold enough, who knows, we might earn ourselves a name.’
Strings reached across the fire and tapped the finger bone hanging from Cuttle’s belt. ‘We’ve made a start, I think.’
‘We might have at that, Sergeant. Them and the standards. A start. She knows what’s in her, give her that. She knows what’s in her.’
‘And it’s for us to bring it out into view.’
‘Aye, Fid, it is at that. Now, go away. These are the hours I spend alone.’
Nodding, the sergeant climbed to his feet. ‘Seems I might be able to sleep after all.’
‘It’s my scintillating conversation what’s done you in.’
‘So it was.’
As Strings made his way to his small tent, something of Cuttle’s words came back to him. Iron. Cold iron. Yes, it’s in her. And now I’d better search and search hard… to find it in me .
BOOK THREE
SOMETHING BREACHES
The art of Rashan is found in the tension that binds the games of light, yet its aspect is one of dissipation-the creation of shadow and of dark, although in this case the dark is not absolute, such as is the aspect of the ancient warren, Kurald Galain. No, this dark is particular, for it exists, not through an absence of light, but by virtue of being seen.
The Mysteries of Rashan-a madman’s discourse
Untural of Lato Revae
CHAPTER TWELVE
Light, shadow and dark-This is a war unending.
Fisher
Glistening silver, the armour lay over a t-shaped stand. Oil had dripped down from the ragged knee-length tassels to form a pool on the flagstoned floor beneath. The sleeves were not loose, but appeared intended to be worn almost skin-tight. It had seen much use, and where mended the rings appeared to be a darker, carbon-stained iron.
Beside it, on a free-standing iron frame with horizontal hooks, waited a two-handed sword, the scabbard parallel directly beneath it on another pair of hooks. The sword was extraordinarily thin, with a long, tapered tip, edges on both sides, twin-fluted. Its surface was a strangely mottled oily blue, magenta and silver. The grip was round instead of flat, banded in gut, the pommel a single, large oblong sphere of polished haematite. The scabbard was of black wood, banded at the point and at the mouth in silver but otherwise unadorned. The harness belt attached to it was of small, almost delicate, black chain links.
Chain gauntlets waited on a wooden shelf on the wall behind the armour. The dull iron helm beside them was little more than a skullcap within a cage of studded bars, the bars reaching down like a massive hand, the gnarled fingers curving down to bridge nose, cheeks and jaw lines. A lobster tail of chain depended from the slightly flared neck rim.
Standing just within the entrance to the modest, low-ceilinged room, Cutter watched as Darist began preparations for donning his martial accoutrements. The Daru youth was finding it difficult to convince himself that such beautiful weapons and armour-which had clearly seen decades, if not centuries, of use-could belong to this silver-haired man, who carried himself like an absent-minded scholar, whose amber eyes seemed to hold a perpetual look of confused distraction beneath the glowing sheen. Who moved slowly as if protecting brittle bones-