Instead, he had waited, patient as was his nature whether living or dead.
Sudden shock, then, upon the gushing taste of blood in his mouth, and the frenzied ecstasy that taste unleashed within him. Sour recognition-most humbling-in discovering such bestial weakness within him-and when the summoning arrived in the language of the First Empire, Kuru Qan found himself rising like a demon to roar his domination over all others, then lunging forth from the iron blade, into the world once again, leading a dread host-
To the one standing. Thelomen Tartheno Toblakai.
And the sword impaling his leg.
Kuru Qan understood, then, what needed to be done. Understood the path that must be forged, and understood, alas, the sacrifice that must be made.
They closed round the Toblakai warrior. They reached for that cursed sword and grasped hold of its blade. They drew with ferocious necessity on the blood streaming down the Toblakai’s leg, causing him to stagger, and, with Kuru Qan in the forefront, the spirits tore open a gate.
A portal.
Chaos roared in on all sides, seeking to annihilate them, and the spirits began surrendering their ghostly lives, sacrificing themselves to the rapacious hunger assailing them. Yet, even as they did so, they pushed the Toblakai forward, forging the path, demanding the journey.
Other spirits awakened, from all around the warrior-the Toblakai’s own slain, and they were legion.
Death roared. The pressure of the chaos stabbed, ripped spirits to pieces-even with all their numbers, the power of their will, they were slowing, they could not get through-Kuru Qan screamed-to draw more of the Toblakai’s power would kill him. They had failed.
Failed-
In a cleared circle in an old Tarthenal burial ground, a decrepit shaman seated cross-legged in its centre stirred awake, eyes blinking open. He glanced up to see Ublala Pung standing just beyond the edge.
‘Now, lad,’ he said.
Weeping, the young Tarthenal rushed forward, a knife in his hands-one of Arbat’s own, the iron black with age, the glyphs on the blade so worn down as to be almost invisible.
Arbat nodded as Ublala Pung reached him and drove the weapon deep into the shaman’s chest. Not on the heart side-Old Hunch needed to take a while to die, to bleed out his power, to feed the multitude of ghosts now rising from the burial grounds.
‘Get away from here!’ Arbat shouted, even as he fell onto his side, blood frothing at his mouth. ‘Get out!’
Loosing a childlike bawl, Ublala Pung ran.
The ghosts gathered, pure-blooded and mixed-bloods, spanning centuries upon centuries and awake after so long.
And Old Hunch Arbat showed them their new god. And then showed them, with the power of his blood, the way through.
Kuru Qan felt himself lifted on a tide, shoved forward as if by an enormous wave, and all at once there were spirits, an army of them.