Midnight Tides & The Bonehunters - By Steven Erikson Page 0,275

in the glade, and all were still asleep with the exception of Iron Bars, who was sitting before a small hearth, intent on stirring the flames to life once more.

A blanket had been thrown over her. The morning air was cool and damp. Seren sat up, drawing the wool about her shoulders, then rose and joined the Avowed at the smouldering fire.

He did not glance up. 'Acquiror. You are rested?'

'Yes, thank you. I don't know if I should apologize—'

'For what? I've been hearing horses, south of here.'

'That would be Brous. There's a garrison there, a small one.'

'Brous is a city?'

'A village, set in the midst of stone ruins. It was once a holy site for the Tarthenal, although they didn't build it.'

'How do you know?'

'The scale is all wrong for Tarthenal.'

'Too small?'

'No, too big.'

He looked up, squinted, then rose. 'Time to prepare a meal, I think.'

'You're a strange officer, Iron Bars,' Seren said, smiling. 'Cooking every breakfast for your soldiers.'

'I always wake up first,' he replied, dragging close a food pack.

She watched him working, wondering how often he had done this. How many glades like this one, how many mornings the first to rise among snoring soldiers. So far from anything resembling home. In a way, she understood him in that regard. There were two manifestations in the Empty Hold that spoke to that nature. Walker and Wanderer, the distinction between them a subtle one of motivation.

The Avowed, she realized, was an easy man to watch.

Coughing, the mage Corlo clawed free of his blanket and stumbled over. 'Where's that tea?'

'Almost ready,' Iron Bars replied.

'Got a headache,' Corlo said. 'Something's up.'

'Heard horses earlier,' the Avowed said. 'Screaming.'

'That's brewed enough for me.'

The Avowed dipped a ladle into the pot, filled the tin cup Corlo held out.

Seren saw the mage's hand trembling.

'May need the diadem today, sir.'

'Uh, rather not. Let's try to avoid that if we can.'

'Aye.'

'The diadem?' Seren asked. 'The one you used to open that path in Trate?'

Corlo shot her a sharp look, then nodded. 'But not for that. There's other rituals woven into it. Forty of 'em, in fact. The one we might have to use speeds us up, makes us faster than normal. But we go that way as rarely as we can, since it leaves us with the shakes – and those shakes get worse the more we use it.'

'Is that why you're trembling now?'

He glanced down at his hand after taking a sip of the herbal brew. 'No. That's something else.'

'Whatever's happening right now at Brous.'

'I guess.'

'Wake up the others, Corlo,' Iron Bars said. 'Acquitor, should we be avoiding Brous?'

'Hard to do. There's a ridge of hills to the east of here. No tracks to speak of across them. We'd lose a day, maybe two, if we went that way.'

'All right.'

'I'll see to the horses,' Seren said after a moment.

The Avowed nodded. 'Then come back and eat.'

'Aye, sir.'

She was pleased at the answering smile, slight though it was.

They were among the ruins well before the village came into view. Most were half buried, rising in humps from the forest floor. Ancient roots gripped the stone, but had clearly failed in forcing cracks into the strange rock. Causeways that had once been raised now formed a crazed web of roads through the forest, littered in dead leaves but otherwise defying intrusion. Reaching the edge of the wood, they could see a scattering of domed buildings in the clearing ahead, and beyond it the palisade wall of Brous, over which woodsmoke hung in a sullen wreath of grey.

The ancient domed buildings possessed formal entrances, a projecting, arched corridor with doorways as wide as they were tall – three times the height of a man.

'Hood's breath,' Corlo hissed, 'these dwarf even K'Chain Che'Malle tombs.'

'Can't say I've ever seen those—' Seren began.

But the mage interrupted. 'Then I'm surprised, since there are plenty of remnants in these lands. They were something between lizards and dragons, walking on two legs. Lots of sharp teeth – Trate's markets had the occasional stall selling the old teeth and bones. K'Chain Che'Malle, lass, ruled this entire continent, once. Long before humans arrived. Anyway, their tombs look something like these ones, only smaller.'

'Oh. It's been assumed that those were Tarthenal. Nothing was ever found inside them.'

'The K'Chain Che'Malle never got the chance to use them, that's why. Most of them, anyway.'

They fell silent as they rode past the first structure, and saw, on the near side of the village, a hundred or more soldiers and workers gathered.