Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,115

fiercely itching, and he lifted them into view. Red, the skin peeling, but at least he had not lost them to the cold. Indeed, he seemed intact, although his leather armour was split and cut all across his chest and shoulders, and he could see that the quilted under-padding bore slices, here and there stained dark red, and beneath them was the sting of shallow wounds on his body.

Not a nightmare, then, those countless attacks. He checked for his sword and found he was not wearing the belted scabbard. A moment later he spied his weapon, leaning against a pack. It was barely recognizable. The blade was twisted, the edge so battered as to make the sword little more than a club.

Footsteps, and Trull turned.

Fear laid a hand upon his shoulder. 'Trull Sengar, we did not expect to see you again. Leading the Jheck away from our path was a bold tactic, and it saved our lives.' He nodded towards the sword. 'Your weapon tells the tale. Do you know how many you defeated?'

Trull shook his head. 'No. Fear, I did not intentionally lead them away from you. I became lost in the storm.'

His brother smiled and said nothing.

Trull glanced over at Theradas. 'I became lost, Theradas Buhn.'

'It matters not,' Theradas replied in a growl.

'I believed I was dead.' Trull looked away, rubbed at his face. 'I saw you, and thought I was joining you in death. I'd expected ...' He shook his head. 'Rhulad ...'

'He was a true warrior, Trull,' Fear said. 'It is done, and now we must move on. There are Arapay on the way – Binadas managed to awaken their shamans to our plight. They will hasten our journey home.'

Trull nodded distractedly. He stared at the distant field of ice. Remembering the feel and sound beneath his moccasins, the blast of the wind, the enervating cold. The horrifying Jheck, silent hunters who claimed a frozen world as their own. They had wanted the sword. Why?

How many Jheck could those ice-fields sustain? How many had they killed? How many wives and children were left to grieve? To starve?

There should have been five hundred of us. Then they would have left us alone.

'Over there!'

At Midik's shout Trull swung round, then faced in the direction Midik was pointing. Northward, where a dozen huge beasts strode, coming down from the ice, four-legged and brown-furred, each bearing long, curved tusks to either side of a thick, sinuous snout.

Ponderous, majestic, the enormous creatures walked towards the lake.

This is not our world.

A sword waited in the unyielding grip of a corpse, sheathed in waxed cloth, bound with ice. A weapon familiar with cold's implacable embrace. It did not belong in Hannan Mosag's hands.

Unless the Warlock King had changed.

And perhaps he has.

'Come and eat, Trull Sengar,' his brother called behind him.

Sisters have mercy on us, in the way we simply go on, and on. Would that we had all died, back there on the ice. Would that we had failed.

CHAPTER NINE

You may be written this way

Spun in strands sewn in thread

Blood woven to the child you once were

Huddled in the fold of night

And the demons beyond the corner

Of your eye stream down

A flurry of arachnid limbs

Twisting and tumbling you tight

To feed upon later.

You may be written this way

Stung senseless at the side of the road

Waylaid on the dark trail

And the recollections beyond the corner

Of your eye suckle in the mud

Dreadful fluids seeping

From improbable pasts

And all that might have been.

You would be written this way

Could you crack the carcass

And unfurl once more

The child you once were

Waylaid

Wrathen Urut

Rolled onto the beach, naked and grey, the young man lay motionless in the sand. His long brown hair was tangled, snarled with twigs and strands of sea-weed. Scaled birds pranced around the body, serrated beaks gaping in the morning heat.

They scattered at Withal's arrival, flapping into the air. Then, as three black Nachts bounded down from the verge, the birds screamed and whirled out over the waves.

Withal crouched down at the figure's side, studied it for a moment, then reached out and rolled the body onto its back.

'Wake up, lad.'

Eyes snapped open, filled with sudden terror and pain. Mouth gaped, neck stretched, and piercing screams rose into the air. The young man convulsed, legs scissoring the sand, and clawed at his scalp.

Withal leaned back on his haunches and waited.

The screams grew hoarse, were replaced by weeping. The convulsions diminished to waves of shuddering as the young man slowly curled up in the sand.

'It gets easier, one hopes,' Withal