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‘We are being hunted.’

The rasping pronouncement drew her round. She saw Toc stringing his bow, heard the wind hum against the taut gut. A new voice in the air. She joined him, gazed westward. A dozen or more riders. ‘Akrynnai,’ she said. ‘They will see our Barghast clothing. They will seek to kill us. Then again,’ she added, ‘if you ride to them, they may change their minds.’Advertisement

‘And why would that be?’ he asked, even as he kicked his horse forward.

She saw the Akrynnai horse-warriors fan out, saw lances being readied.

Toc rode straight for them, an arrow nocked to the bowstring.

As they drew closer, Setoc saw the Akrynnai falter, even as their lances lifted defensively. Moments later the warriors scattered, horses bucking beneath them. Within a few more heartbeats, all were in flight. Toc slowly wheeled his mount and rode back to where she stood.

‘It seems you were right.’

‘Their horses knew before they did.’

He halted his mount, returned the arrow to its quiver and deftly unstrung the bow.

‘Actually, you’ll need those,’ Setoc said. ‘We need food. We need water, too.’

It seemed he’d stopped listening, and his head was turned to the east.

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‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘More hunters?’

‘She wasn’t satisfied,’ he muttered. ‘Of course not. What can one do better than an army can? Not much. But he won’t like it. He never did. In fact, he may turn them all away. Well now, Bonecaster, what would you do about that? If he releases them?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. She? Him? What army?’

His head turned to look past her. She swung round. The boy was on his feet, walking over to the wolf cairn. He sang, ‘Blalalalalalala…’

‘I wish he’d stop doing that,’ she said.

‘You are not alone in that, Setoc of the Wolves.’

She started, turned back to eye the undead warrior. ‘I see you now, Toc Anaster, and it seems you have but one eye-dead as it is. But that first night, I saw-’

‘What? What did you see?’

The eye of a wolf. She waved towards the cairn. ‘You brought us here.’

‘No. I took you away. Tell me, Setoc, are the beasts innocent?’

‘Innocent? Of what?’

‘Did they deserve their fate?’

‘No.’

‘Did it matter? Whether they deserved it or not?’

‘No.’

‘Setoc, what do the Wolves want?’

She knew by his intonation that he meant the god and the goddess-she knew they existed, even if she didn’t know their names, or if they even had ones. ‘They want us all to go away. To leave them alone. Them and their children.’

‘Will we?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

She struggled for an answer.

‘Because, Setoc, to live is to wage war. And it just happens that no other thing is as good at waging war as we are.’

‘I don’t believe you! Wolves don’t wage war against anything!’

‘A pack marks out its territory and that pack will drive off any other pack that seeks to encroach upon it. The pack defends its claim-to the land, and to the animals it preys upon in that land.’

‘But that’s not war!’

He shrugged. ‘Mostly, it’s just the threat of war, until threat alone proves insufficient. Every creature strives for dominance, among its own kind and within its territory. Even a pack of dogs will find its king, its queen, and they will rule by virtue of their strength and the threat their strength implies, until they are usurped by the next in line. What can we make of this? That politics belong to all social creatures? So it would seem. Setoc, could the Wolves kill us humans, every one of us, would they?’

‘If they understood it was them or us, yes! Why shouldn’t they?’

‘I was but asking questions,’ Toc replied. ‘I once knew a woman who could flatten a city with the arch of a single perfect eyebrow.’

‘Did she?’ Setoc asked, pleased to be the one asking questions.

‘Occasionally. But, not every city, not every time.’

‘Why not?’

The undead warrior smiled, the expression chilling her. ‘She liked a decent bath every now and then.’

After Toc had set off in search of food, Setoc set about building a hearth with whatever stones she could find. The boy was sitting in front of the cairn, still singing his song. The twins had awakened but neither seemed to have anything to say. Their eyes were glazed and Setoc knew it for shock. pqdm.com