A smaller figure skittered onto a rotted cedar stump directly in front of Quick Ben, a man-shaped bundle of sticks and string with an acorn head.
The wizard nodded. 'Talamandas. I thought you were returning to the White Faces.'
'And so I did, Mage, thanks solely to your cleverness.'
'You've an odd way of showing your gratitude, Old One.' Quick Ben looked around. 'Where are we?'
'The First Landing. Here wait the warriors who did not survive the journey's end. Our fleet was vast, Mage, yet when the voyage was done, fully half of the canoes held only corpses. We had crossed an ocean in ceaseless battle.'
'And where do the Barghast dead go now?'
'Nowhere, and everywhere. They are lost. Wizard, your challenger has slain Humbrall Taur's champion. The spirits have drawn breath and hold it still, for the man may yet die.'
Quick Ben flinched. He was silent for a moment, then he said, 'And if he does?'
'Your soldiers will die. Humbrall Taur has no choice. He will face civil war. The spirits themselves will lose their unity. You would be too great a distraction, a source of greater divisiveness. But this is not why I have had you, brought here.' The small sticksnare gestured at the figures standing silent behind him. 'These are the warriors. The army. Yet. our warchiefs are not among us. The Founding Spirits were lost long ago. Mage, a child of Humbrall Taur has found them. Found them!'
'But there's a problem.'
Talamandas seemed to slump. 'There is. They are trapped … within the city of Capustan.'
The implications of that slowly edged into place in the wizard's mind. 'Does Humbrall Taur know?'
'He does not. I was driven away by his shouldermen. The most ancient of spirits are not welcome. Only the young ones are allowed to be present, for they have little power. Their gift is comfort, and comfort has come to mean a great deal among the Barghast. It was not always so. You see before you a pantheon divided, and the vast schism between us is time — and the loss of memory. We are as strangers to our children; they will not listen to our wisdom and they fear our potential power.'
'Was it Humbrall Taur's hope that his child would find these Founding Spirits?'
'He embraces a grave risk, yet he knows the White Face clans are vulnerable. The young spirits are too weak to resist the Pannion Domin. They will be enslaved or destroyed. When comfort is torn away, all that will be revealed is a weakness of faith, an absence of strength. The clans will be crushed by the Domin's armies. Humbrall Taur reaches for power, yet he gropes blindly.'