The Bonehunters

Page 181

Front legs buckled, and the cow sagged to one side, then was still.
Halting his horse, Karsa slid off and approached the dead cow. 'Make us a camp,' he said to Samar Dev.
She stared at him, then said, 'Fine, you have shown me that I am, in fact, unnecessary. As far as you're concerned. Now what? You expect me to set up camp, and then, I presume, help you butcher that thing.
Shall I lie beneath you tonight just to round things out?'
He had drawn a knife and now knelt in the pooling water beside the cow. 'If you like,' he said.
Barbarian bastard… well, I should not have expected anything else, should I? 'All right, I have been thinking, we will need this meat – the land of rocks and lakes north of here no doubt has game, but far less plentiful and far more elusive.'
'I shall take the bull's skin,' Karsa said, slicing open the bhederin' s belly. Entrails tumbled out to splash in the swampy water. Already, hundreds of insects swarmed the kill-site. 'Do you wish this cow's skin, Samar Dev?'
'Why not? If a glacier lands on us we won't freeze, and that's something.'
He glanced over at her. 'Woman, glaciers don't jump. They crawl.'
'That depends on who made them in the first place, Karsa Orlong.'
He bared his teeth. 'Legends of the Jaghut do not impress me. Ice is ever a slow-moving river.'
'If you believe that, Karsa Orlong, you know far less than you think you do.'
'Do you plan on sitting on that horse all day, woman?'
'Until I find high ground to make a camp, yes.' And she gathered the reins.
Witness, he said. He's said that before, hasn't he? Some kind of tribal thing, I suppose. Well, I witnessed all right. As did that savage hiding in the shadows at the far end of the glade. I pray the locals do not feel proprietary towards these bhederin. Or we will find excitement unending, which Karsa might well enjoy. As for me, I'll just likely end up dead.
Well, too late to worry much about that.
She then wondered how many of Karsa Orlong's past companions had had similar thoughts. In those times just before the Teblor barbarian found himself, once again, travelling alone.
****
The rough crags of the ridge cast a maze of shadows along the ledge just beneath, and in these shadows five sets of serpentine eyes stared down at the winding wall of dust on the plain below. A trader's caravan, seven wagons, two carriages, twenty guards on horses. And three war-dogs.
There had been six, but three had caught Dejim Nebrahl's scent and, stupid creatures that they were, had set off to hunt the T'rolbarahl down. They had succeeded in finding the D'ivers, and their blood now filled the bellies of the five remaining beasts.
The Trell had stunned Dejim Nebrahl. To snap one of his necks – not even a Tartheno could manage such a thing – and one had tried, long ago. Then, to drag the other down, over the cliff's edge, to plunge to its death among the jagged rocks below. This audacity was… unforgivable. Weak and wounded, Dejim Nebrahl had fled the scene of ambush, wandering half-crazed with anger and pain until stumbling upon the trail of this caravan. How many days and nights had passed, the T' rolbarahl had no idea. There was hunger, the need to heal, and these demands filled the mind of the D'ivers.
Before Dejim Nebrahl, now, waited his salvation. Enough blood to spawn replacements for those he had lost in the ambush; perhaps enough blood to fashion yet another, an eighth.
He would strike at dusk, the moment the caravan halted for the day.
Slaughter the guards first, then the remaining dogs, and finally the fat weaklings riding in their puny carriages. The merchant with his harem of silent children, each one chained to the next and trailing behind the carriage. A trader in mortal flesh.
The notion sickened Dejim Nebrahl. There had been such detestable creatures in the time of the First Empire, and depravity never went extinct. When the T'rolbarahl ruled this land, a new justice would descend upon the despoilers of flesh. Dejim would feed upon them first, and then all other criminals, the murderers, the beaters of the helpless, the stone-throwers, the torturers of the spirit.
His creator had meant him and his kind to be guardians of the First Empire. Thus the conjoining of bloods, making the sense of perfection strong, god-like. Too strong, of course. The T'rolbarahl would not be ruled by an imperfect master. No, they would rule, for only then could true justice be delivered.
Justice. And… of course… natural hunger. Necessity carved out its own laws, and these could not be denied. When he ruled, Dejim Nebrahl would fashion a true balance between the two dominant forces in his D' ivers soul, and if the mortal fools suffered beneath the weight of his justice, then so be it. They deserved the truth of their own beliefs.