I’m walking.’
‘Good. Can’t spare anyone to carry you, anyway.’
‘Your sympathy overwhelms me.’
‘I do my best.’ Hirad looked across Ren to Ilkar, and Erienne could see his expression in profile, picked out in the vague pre-dawn light. It was desperate, still disbelieving. ‘Anyway, the pain won’t last for ever. It’s only twenty-odd days to the temple.’
Ren tensed but Ilkar laughed. ‘I’ll attempt to keep my insides from decomposing too much before we get there.’
‘Bloody right,’ said Hirad. ‘I’m not sharing a cabin with you if you smell.’
Their chuckles echoed a little loud.
‘Keep it down,’ said The Unknown.
It was only a mile to Understone.
Auum watched The Raven go, ambling away down the slope like they were out for an early-morning stroll. He heard their talk and laughter and shook his head.
‘Perhaps my assessment was premature,’ he said.
‘It’s their way,’ said Rebraal. ‘We pray to ease the tension and fear, they talk to keep their minds from it until the moment arrives.’
‘I will never understand strangers,’ said Auum.
The TaiGethen bowed their heads and prayed to Yniss to keep them strong for the fight to come. Auum murmured offerings to Tual while he painted Duele’s face, and when all three were ready they stood with the ClawBound.
‘Fight with us, Rebraal. You are our link to The Raven so keep close. This day we will start to right the crimes committed against us. This day I will hold the thumb of Yniss in my hand or I will be travelling to meet him to account for my failings in this life. This I swear.’
The TaiGethen jogged from the camp, heading for the eastern edge of Understone, Rebraal with them. The ClawBound, swift and sure, were just ahead. Auum felt no thrill, just a sense that Yniss might once again be prepared to look their way.
And the god would be looking down when the desecrators and thieves and those who thought to kill his people paid.
The Raven looked down on Understone. It was quiet. Along the single street the ramshackle buildings still stood: the inn, the grain store, the boarded-up traders’ offices, the whorehouses, a few homes. Elsewhere the ground was covered with tents and shelters, all dark and silent. There were over a hundred of them. The only life was in the stockade at the western end of the town. Fires burned around the rampart and lanterns shone from barracks windows. They could see figures walking the raised platform. After the end of the second Wesmen wars, the town had been rebuilt in the image of the old in the hope of renewed trade with the west and just as quickly abandoned again. Only the stockade had remained staffed.
‘That’ll be where Selik is,’ said Hirad.
‘All in good time,’ said Darrick. ‘We’ll do this in the right order and be the safer for it.’
They moved quietly now, heading for the first tents. Spread panic, Darrick had said. Target the tattoos. Let them make the moves and see who is prepared to fight. Not many, guessed Hirad, but time would tell.
Fifty yards from the tents and all was according to Darrick’s plan. The bulk of the Black Wings were looking after themselves in the stockade and the innocents, if you could truly call anyone that who had travelled here to fight with Selik, were unguarded in their tents. They didn’t understand conflict. Didn’t realise the vulnerability of masses of men to targeted magical attack. Why should they? They were tradesmen.
‘He’ll have paid mercenaries too,’ said The Unknown. ‘We’ll know them when we see them.’
‘Paid,’ mused Hirad. ‘An unfamiliar idea for us these days.’
‘Erienne, Denser, ready?’
The pair nodded, preparing, melding their constructs for wider effect.
‘A short sharp shower. When it’s down, we go and we don’t stop,’ said Darrick. ‘Is everyone clear?’
‘Ilks?’ asked Hirad.
‘My ears are on the side of my head not in my gut, Hirad. Yes, I hear and understand.’
‘Just checking.’
Hirad felt a touch on his back. ‘Thank you.’
Hirad readied himself, checked his hilt for loose binding again and angled the blade to see the edge. The drizzle had stopped and the cloud was shifting. It would be a bright dawn. A few birds began to call. From somewhere the bleating of a sheep carried over to them. It was tranquil. Just for a moment.
‘Casting,’ said Denser faintly.
HotRain filled the sky above the southernmost tents. For a while they watched it fall, tears of flame the size of thumbs. Thousands of them. People were going to die in terror. So be it. From the stockade the