Kellanved's Reach

The young man smiled winningly and saluted with a fist to his chest. ‘Very good. Perhaps we shall see you again.’

Gregar gave an awkward half-bow. ‘Ah, yes. Perhaps.’

The two Crimson guardsmen walked off and all heads at nearby cookfires turned to follow them. Gregar and Haraj exchanged looks of bewilderment. Gregar scratched his head. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘I think he meant it. I think he really admired that you chose to stay with your troop – even though you’re sure to be trampled like an idiot for your trouble.’

Gregar threw a swing at the lad. ‘I’ll just hold you ahead of me. Wouldn’t that work?’

‘I’m obliged to say no, it wouldn’t.’

Back at their camp a worried-looking Leah met them, tapping a hand to her newly issued shortsword. ‘What was that about?’

Gregar and Haraj shared another look, uncertain what to say. Gregar shrugged. ‘Just that we can try again, maybe. In the future.’

The sergeant visibly relaxed. ‘Good.’

‘Good?’

She flinched, sneering. ‘A’course! Good for the company! They expect to see you holding the colours. What else could I mean?’

Gregar rubbed his chin, a touch puzzled by her reaction. ‘Sure … whatever.’

‘Damned right!’ she growled. ‘Anyway, word’s going round. Tomorrow or the next we withdraw from the siege and march east, to the marshalling grounds.’

‘We’re gonna be there for the fight, hey?’ Haraj said.

The young woman’s mouth turned down. ‘Everyone is gonna be there. Shaping into a godsdamned bloodbath.’

Chapter 15

Without pausing to think or breathe, Dancer whipped a blade at the Witch Jadeen. The throwing knife swerved aside before touching her, somehow deflected, and Jadeen raised a shocked brow.

‘You are fast,’ she acknowledged. ‘That would’ve reached me had I not already prepared.’

For his part, Kellanved peered about the apparently otherwise empty natural cavern. He shook his head in disappointment. ‘So … just an old chair, after all.’

The smug, one-sided smile remained on the witch’s lips. ‘No. Far more than that. Unfortunately for you.’ She extended her arms out as if beckoning. ‘Arise.’

The plentiful dust and debris lying about the rough cavern floor stirred at the witch’s call. The small hairs on Dancer’s neck stirred in atavistic dread as shapes began to coalesce from the gathering motes and swirls. Like their namesake, the Army of Dust and Bone, from dust came bone, and five individuals emerged – not skeletal, but each a desiccated, or mummified, corpse. Flesh still clung as a layered tannic-hued veneer over bone. Four wore bulky headdresses of animal skulls and hides, the fifth plain half-rotted leathers; a long heavy blade at his side was clearly worked from one immense shard of brown flint. Dark eye-pits regarded Dancer, empty yet somehow animate with intelligence and awareness.

And despite his lifetime of training, of fighting and self-discipline, Dancer found himself frozen in fascination and dismay at the sight. The manifestation of stories and legends of terror before him now – what could he possibly do? Then the moment passed, and he snapped back into his heightened readiness. They were flesh, dried and hardened perhaps, but flesh all the same. Not ghosts or apparitions beyond the touch of his blades – or so he reassured himself.

‘Behold,’ Jadeen announced, ‘the army of the ancient T’lan Imass.’

One of the individuals spoke – a breathless guttural utterance, somehow conveyed perhaps through the magic of its very existence. The words, however, remained unintelligible to Dancer. Puzzlement must have shown on his face, as the same individual waved a hand of dried ligament, bone, and leathery flesh, and spoke again. ‘Well come, traveller,’ he announced. ‘We are the Logros T’lan Imass, tasked with the guardianship of the throne. I am Tem Benasto, Bonecaster.’ Gesturing to each, Tem introduced ‘Ulpan Nodosha, Tenag Ilbaie, Ay Estos, and Onos T’oolan’.

The Bonecaster wore upon his head the skull of an extraordinarily large hunting cat, placed so that his face stared out of the opened jaws, while his hide cape, or wrap, where the hair still clung, bore a tawny hue, suggestive of a lion. Ulpan Nodosha wore the headdress of a gigantic bear, likewise staring out of the gaping jaws, the remaining thick fur brown and black. Tenag Ilbaie, however, bore the largest headdress – what appeared to be a woolly elephant skull, or stylized representation thereof. Ay Estos wore a far more slim and lean wolf’s headdress, the remaining fur of his – or her – hide wrap a dirty grey and white. The last, Onos T’oolan, wore no headdress at all and was all the more horrific for it, his skull half bare of flesh, nose gone, perhaps shorn away, eye-sockets empty, the dried flesh of his lips and cheeks drawn back from stained grinning teeth.

Jadeen waved impatiently. ‘Yes, yes. No need for the full explanation. Onos, step forward.’

He did so, bowing to Jadeen upon the throne.

‘As your first official act in my command – I order you to slay these two.’