Toll the Hounds

My friend.

‘He is not far ahead of us now, and still on foot. We should catch up to him to-day.’

She nodded.

Traveller studied her for a moment. He then swung himself on to his horse and collected the reins. ‘Samar Dev, I cannot work out what happened here.’

‘He did,’ she replied. ‘He happened here.’

‘He killed no one. From what you have told me, well, I thought to find something else. It is as if he simply walked up to them and said, “It’s over.”‘ He frowned across at her. ‘How can that be?’

She shook her head.

He grunted, guiding his horse round. ‘The scourge of the Skathandi has ended.’

‘It has.’

‘My fear of your companion has… deepened. I am ever more reluctant to find him.’

‘But that will not stop you, will it? If he carries the Emperor’s Sword…’ He did not reply. He didn’t need to. They set out at a canter. Northward.

The wind cut across from the west, sun-warmed and dry. The few clouds scudding past overhead were thin and shredded. Ravens or hawks circled, wheeling specks, and Samar Dev thought of flies buzzing the corpse of the earth.

She spat to clear away the taste of woodsmoke.

A short time later they came upon a small camp. Three men, two pregnant women. The fear in their eyes warred with abject resignation as Samar Dev and Traveller came up and reined in. The men had not sought to flee, proof of the rarest kind of courage-the women were too burdened to run, so the men had stayed and if that meant death, then so be it. Details like these ever humbled Samar Dev. ‘You are following the Toblakai,’ Traveller said, dismounting. They stared, say-lug nothing. Traveller half turned and gestured for Samar Dev. Curious, she slipped down,

‘Can you see to the health of the women?’ he asked her in a low voice.

‘All right,’ she said, then watched as the Dal Honese warrior led the three men off to one side. Bemused, Samar Dev approached the women. Both, she saw, were far along in their pregnancies, and then she noted that both seemed… not quite human. Furtive eyes the hue of tawny grasses, a kind of animal wariness along with the resignation she had noted earlier, but now she understood it as the fatalism of the victim, the hunted, the prey. Yes, she could imagine seeing such eyes in the antelope with the leopard’s jaws closed on its throat. The image left her feeling rattled.

‘I am a witch,’ she said. ‘Shoulder Woman.’

Both remained sitting. They stared in silence.

She edged closer and crouched down opposite them. They bore features both human and animal, as if they represented some alternative version of human beings. Dark-skinned, slope-browed, with broad mouths full-lipped and probably-when not taut with anxiety-unusually expressive. Both looked well fed, essentially healthy. Both emanated that strange completeness that only pregnant women possessed. When everything outward faced inward. In a less generous moment she might call it smugness but this was not such a moment. Besides, there was in those auras something animal that made it all seem proper, natural, as if this was exclusively and precisely what women were for.

Now that notion irritated her.

She straightened and walked over to where Traveller stood with the men. ‘They are fine,’ she said.

His brows rose at her tone, but he said nothing.

‘So,’ she asked, ‘what secrets have they revealed?’

“The sword he carries was made of flint, or obsidian. Stone.’

‘Then he rejected the Crippled God. No, I’m not surprised. He won’t do what’s expected. Ever. It’s part of his damned religion, I suspect. What now, Traveller?’

He sighed. ‘We will catch up with him anyway.’ A brief smile. ‘With less trepidation now.’

‘There’s still the risk,’ she said, ‘of an… argument.’

They returned to their horses.

‘The Skathandi king was dying,’ Traveller explained as they both rode out from the camp. ‘He bequeathed his kingdom to your friend. Who then dissolved it, freeing all the slaves, warning off the soldiers. Taking nothing for himself. Nothing at all.’

She grunted.

Traveller was silent for a moment and then he said, ‘A man like that… well, I am curious. I would like to meet him.’

‘Don’t expect hugs and kisses,’ she said. ‘He will not be pleased to see you?’

‘I have no idea, although I am bringing him his horse, which should count for something.’

‘Does he know how you feel about him?’