Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy 2)

‘Their leader,’ the hunter replied. ‘He names himself Captain Hallyd Bahann. We found him hiding in the hollow of a fallen tree.’

‘Bind him. Send him back to the Watch. Begin stripping armour and recovering weapons, and arrows.’

‘This is a great victory, war-master!’

‘Yes.’ Now find that sculptor. Chase him down. Pin him to the ground. Still his red hands. No more of his work on this day. An end to it. No more. ‘Yes. A great victory.’

* * *

Narad stood wrapped in furs, watching as they dragged the enemy commander closer. Captain Hallyd Bahann’s crotch was stained. Tears muddied his cheeks. He stank with all the animal smells of panic. Dignity, Narad well knew, was hard to come by, especially in battle and all that came afterwards. Survival itself could leave one feeling sullied.

Better they had killed him. I want nothing to do with this.

Glyph’s hunters, now warriors, were returning to the camp in small groups, burdened with bloodstained leather armour, weapon-belts and helms. Their faces were flushed despite the grey cast of their skin, yet something lifeless hid behind all of that, something scoured out and unlikely to ever return. This deadness accompanied the arriving warriors like a roll of fog across moorland, bleak and miasmic. Narad felt it swirl around him, seeking a way in.

Now warriors, but this is no elevation of stature or rank, no prize freshly won. This is a descent felt deep in the soul, as if a newfound skill was only now comprehended as a curse. This is competence maligned, pride besmirched. We now walk a levelled world.

‘A ransom will be paid. This I promise!’

Narad frowned at the captain who had been thrown down at his feet. He struggled to make sense of the man’s fraught words. ‘Ransom? What need have we for coin?’

‘I have value! I am an officer of the Legion, damn you.’

Yes. I recall taking orders from ones such as you, sir. I recall, as well, where that led. ‘Every soldier,’ he said, ‘holds to a faith. That the ones commanding them are honourable, that necessity is bound to righteousness. This keeps the stains from becoming permanent. Imagine the betrayal, then, when the soldier discovers neither honour nor righteousness in those commanders.’

‘Lord Urusander’s cause is righteous enough, you fool. Abyss take me,’ Hallyd snarled, ‘that I should argue morality with a forest-grubbing murderer.’

Narad tilted his head as he studied the man at his feet. ‘Was it by Lord Urusander’s command that a family at a wedding should be slaughtered? Name for me, sir, the moral justification for that. What of the bride – the poor bride – raped to death upon the hearthstone? Where, I beg you, is the honour to be found in such atrocity?’

‘The excesses of that … event, belong to the captain commanding that company. She exceeded her orders—’

‘Infayen Menand, yes. But I am curious – where did the instances of excess begin? The bride’s ill usage, or the first sword to leave the scabbard? Some paths acquire a momentum of their own, as I am sure you comprehend. One thing leads inevitably to the next. So, from noble beginnings, to unmitigated horror.’

Hallyd bared his teeth. ‘Take it up with Infayen.’

‘Perhaps we will.’

Hallyd Bahann’s face suddenly twisted. ‘They will hunt you down! They will flay the skin from every damned one of you!’

Narad glanced up as three figures approached. A shaman and two witches. They had come down from the northwest, from the lands of House Dracons. With their bags filled with bones and talons, with teeth and acorns, feathers and beads. With magic like smoke around them. Say nothing more to me of ancient spirits and forgotten gods, and I’ll not speak of my memories of your kind screaming inside a burning longhouse.

The one bearing the antlered headdress now spoke. ‘Yedan Narad, we will take him if you like.’

‘Take him?’ He eyed the three. Their flat visages revealed nothing.

‘A clearing,’ the shaman continued. ‘Filled with sharpened stakes. It is fitting.’

‘What are they talking about?’ demanded Hallyd Bahann, struggling to shift position, twisting round in an effort to glare up at the shaman.

‘They seek to prolong your death, I think,’ Narad replied, sighing.

‘Torture? Abyss below, have mercy on me. It’s not done to soldiers – don’t you people understand that? When did the Tiste sink to the level of savages?’

‘Oh, we are savages indeed,’ Narad said, nodding. ‘Not soldiers at all, sir. You should have considered that before you sent your soldiers into the forests to slay the innocent. Before your soldiers raped the helpless. In your world, sir, you called your victims Deniers. What gift of your civil comportment did they so egregiously deny? Never mind. We have now fully embraced your ways, sir.’

‘You’re a damned deserter! That sword at your belt!’

Narad shrugged. ‘But I wonder, sir. What worth this civilization, when savagery thrives within it? When criminals abound in safety behind its walls? And no, I speak not of the Deniers, but of you and your soldiers.’