Banewreaker(3)

"Readiness." Calm, still calm, though it seemed the ichor bled faster from his wound, the broad trail glistening wider. "Tanaros, command of the armies is yours. Those who are on leave must be recalled, and each squadron rendered a full complement. There must be new recruits. Vorax, see to our lines of supply, and those allies who might be bribed or bought. Ushahin…" The Shaper smiled. "Do as you do."

They bowed, each of the Three, pressing clenched fists to their hearts.

"We will not fail you, my Lord," Tanaros said for them all.

"My brave lieutenants." Satoris' words hung in the air, gentle. "My brother Haomane seeks my life, to end the long quarrel between us. This you know. But all the weapons and all the prophecies in the Sundered World avail him not, so long as the dagger Godslayer remains safe in our charge, and where it lies, no hands but mine may touch it. This I promise you: for so long as the marrow-fire burns, I shall reign in Darkhaven, and you Three with me. It is the pact of your branding, and I shall not fail it. Now go, and see that we are in readiness."

They went.

On the horizon, the red star of war flickered.



"SO IT'S WAR, THEN."

For all his mass, the Fjeltroll's hands were quick and deft, working independent of their owner's thoughts.

"So it seems." Tanaros watched Hyrgolf's vast hands shape the rhios, using talons and brute force to carve the lump of granite. It was in its final stages, needing only the smoothing of the rounded surfaces and the delineation of the expressive face. "You'll order the recall? And a thousand new recruits drafted?"

"Aye, General." His field marshal blew on the stone, clearing granite dust from the miniature crevices. He held the rhios in the palm of his horny hand and regarded it at eye level. A river sprite, rounded like an egg, an incongruous delicacy against the yellowed, leathery palm. "What think you?"

"It is lovely."

Hyrgolf squinted. His eyes were like a boar's, small and fierce, and he was of the Tungskulder Fjel, broad and strong and steady. "There's some will be glad of the news."

"There always are," Tanaros said. "Those are the ones bear watching."

The Fjeltroll nodded, making minute adjustments to the figurine's delicate features, shearing away infinitesimal flakes of granite. "They always are."

Brutes, Men called them; delvers, sheep-slaughterers, little better than animals. Tanaros had believed it himself, once. Once, when the sons of Altorus ruled a powerful kingdom in the southwest, and he had been Commander of the Guard, and held the borders of Altoria against the forces of Satoris; the deadly Were, the horrid Fjeltroll. Once, when he had been a married man deep in love, a husband and faithful servant, who had called a bold, laughing man with red-gold hair his lord and king.

Roscus. Roscus Altorus.

Aracus Altorus.

Oh, love, love! Tanaros remembered, wondering. How could you do that to us?

Somewhere, an infant drew breath into its lungs and bawled.

So much time elapsed, and the wound still unhealed. His heart ached with it still, beat and ached beneath the silvery scar that seared it, that made the pain bearable. It had cracked at her betrayal; cracked, like the Souma itself. And in that darkness, Satoris had called to him, and he had answered, for it was the only voice to pierce his void.

Now… now.

Now it was different, and he was one of the Three. Tanaros, General Tanaros, Tanaros Blacksword, and this creature, Hyrgolf of the Fjeltroll, was his second-in-command, and a trusted companion. For all that he massed more than any two Men combined, for all that his eyetusks showed when he smiled, he was loyal, and true.

"You think of her," Hyrgolf said.

"Is it so obvious, my friend?"

"No." Hyrgolf blew dust from the rhios and studied it again, turning it this way and that. "But I know you, General. And I know the stories. It is best not to think of it. The dead are the dead, and gone."

Her neck beneath his hands, white and slender; her eyes, bulging, believing at the last. A crushing force. And somewhere, an infant crying, wisps of red-gold hair plastered on its soft skull. An infant he had allowed to live.

Tanaros remembered and flexed his hands, his capable hands, hunching his shoulders under the weight of memory. "I have lived too long to forget, my friend."

"Here." Broad hands covered his, pressing something into them. Dirt-blackened talons brushed his wrists. An object, egg-sized and warm. Tanaros cradled the rhios in his palms. A sprite, a river sprite. Her delicate face laughed at him from between his thumbs. A rounded shape, comforting, bearing streaks of salmon-pink. It made him think of backwater currents, gentle eddies, of spawning-pools rife with eggs.