Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

Uskan laughed. ‘Meaning, sir, she probably died yesterday afternoon.’

‘You find that amusing, do you, lieutenant?’

Uskan leaned his head to one side and spat blood. ‘Those poor monks were defending a corpse. They killed eighteen soldiers. And all of it was for nothing. Amusing, sir? No. Fucking hilarious.’ He paused, a frown settling on his pale brow. ‘Did I say eighteen? Wrong. Make that … nineteen …’

Hallyd Bahann glared at him, until he realized that Uskan couldn’t see anything, because the man was dead.

The commander stepped back, eyed the two corpses facing each other in their plush chairs.

Telra appeared at his side. ‘Sir, we should collect his body—’

‘No,’ Bahann replied. ‘Leave him where he is. For all we know, he and that old man are swapping stories right now. Move our other dead back into the hall. We’re going to burn it all down.’

‘We have prisoners, sir—’

‘Prisoners?’

‘Servants. Children, mostly.’

‘Find them a wagon. Send them down to Yedan monastery.’

‘We’re not going to attack it, sir?’

‘No. They’ve lost both their leaders and that monastery is now full of widows. Let them grieve.’

‘And us, sir?’

With some effort, Hallyd Bahann dragged his gaze away from the two corpses in their chairs. He eyed Telra. ‘We’re heading into the forest. We’ve dealt with the Shake. Now we’ll deal with the Deniers.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I’m field promoting you to lieutenant.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

After a moment, he shook his head. ‘Uskan never really seemed to be the kind of soldier to die in battle. Not like this.’

Telra shrugged. ‘Perhaps, sir, he got careless.’

Bahann squinted at her, wondering, but her face was expressionless, and stayed that way.

EIGHTEEN

THERE HAD BEEN AN AGE, PERHAPS A CENTURY BACK, WHEN artists had turned their talents to working in stone and bronze. As if stung by the prodigious masterpieces raised up by the Azathanai, and in particular the High Mason Caladan Brood, these Tiste artists had pursued techniques to match, if not surpass, the efforts of their neighbours. In the pursuit of realism, and then the conjuration of natural forms elevated into a kind of aesthetic perfection, the use of plaster casting – upon living, breathing models – had been perfected. The art form had burgeoned in a spectacular, albeit brief, flurry of statuary that saw works proliferating throughout the public spaces of Kharkanas, and in the gardens, grand halls and courtyards of the nobility.

But any civilization that saw art as a kind of cultural competition was, to Rise Herat’s mind, well down the road to disillusion, and the collapse of statuary as a form of artistic expression came on the day that a Tiste merchant returned from the lands of the Azathanai, transporting in her train a new work by some unknown Azathanai sculptor.

If the Azathanai had been paying attention to the Tiste sculptors, they had been unmoved. The idealization of the Tiste form, the body transformed into marble or bronze and thereby stripped of its mortality, was a kind of conceit, possibly defiant, probably diffident. The work that had been brought into Kharkanas was massive, wrought in rough bronze. It bore sharp, jagged edges. It writhed with panic and fury. Upon a broad, flat pedestal, a dozen hounds surrounded a single hound, and that beast, in the centre of the storm, was dying. Its companions tore into its flanks, sank fangs into its hide, pulling, stretching, tearing.

Gallan told the tale of a score or so of Kharkanas’s finest sculptors, all gathering in the private courtyard where stood the Azathanai bronze. Some had railed, filling the air with spiteful condemnation, or voicing their sniffing contempt for the raw hand that had sculpted this monstrosity. A few others had fallen silent, their gazes fixed upon the work. Only one, a master artist considered by most to be the finest sculptor in Kurald Galain, had wept.

Among the Tiste, art had given shape to an ideal. But stone never betrayed. Bronze could not deceive. The ideal, made to kneel to political assertions of superiority, had, almost overnight, descended into mockery.

‘By this,’ Gallan had said, ‘perfection is made mortal once again. By this, our conceit dulls.’

The Azathanai bronze, deemed offensive, had been removed from public display. Eventually, it had found its way into a crypt beneath the Citadel, a broad, low-ceilinged room, now home to scores of other works, that Gallan had named the Tarnished Chamber.

The historian had set three lanterns down, casting sharp light upon three sides of the Azathanai bronze, which someone had rather uninspiringly called ‘The Savaging of the Hound’. He had then circled the work, studying it from varying heights and angles. He had made a window with his hands to block out all but the details. He had drawn close to smell the metal and its patina of greasy dust, and had set fingertips against the verdigris where it coated the beasts like mange.