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‘Nor a people terrorized by one of their own.’

There had been fierce clashes over this. Despite his ascension to Warchief, a unanimous proclamation following the tragic death of her father, Onos Toolan had almost immediately found himself at odds with all the clan chiefs. War against the Lether Empire would be an unjust war, the Edur hegemony notwithstanding. Not only were the Letherii not their enemy, even these Tiste Edur, crouching in the terrible shadow of their emperor, likely bore no relationship whatsoever to those ancient Edur who had preyed upon the Barghast so many generations past. The entire notion of vengeance, or that of a war resumed, suddenly tasted sour, and for Tool, an Imass who felt nothing of the old festering wounds in the psyche of the Barghast-who was indeed deaf to the fury of the awakened Barghast gods… well, he’d shown no patience with those so eager to shed blood.Advertisement

The shoulder-seers had by this time lost all unity of vision. The prophecy, which had seemed so simple and clear, was all at once mired in ambiguity, seeding such discord among the seers that even their putative leader, Cafal, brother to Hetan, failed in his efforts to quell the schisms among the shamans. Thus, they had been no help in the battle of wills between Tool and the chiefs; and they were no help now.

Cafal persisted in travelling from tribe to tribe-she had not seen her brother in months. If he had succeeded in repairing any damage, she’d not heard of it; even among the shoulder-seers in this camp, she sensed a pervasive unease, and a sour reluctance to speak with anyone.

Onos Toolan had been unwilling to unleash the White Faces upon the Lether Empire-and his will had prevailed, until that one fated day, when the last of the Awl fell-when Toc the Younger had died. Not only had Hetan’s own clan, the Senan, been unleashed, so too had the dark hunger of Tool’s own sister, Kilava.

Hetan missed that woman, and knew that her husband’s grief was complicated by her departure-a departure that he might well see as her abandoning him in the moment of his greatest need. Hetan suspected, however, that in witnessing Toc’s death-and the effect it had had upon her brother, Kilava had been brutally reminded of the ephemeral nature of love and friendship-and so she had set out to rediscover her own life. A selfish impulse, perhaps, and an unfair wounding of a brother already reeling from loss.

Yes, Kilava deserved a good hard slap to the side of that shapely head, and Hetan vowed that she would be the one to deliver it, when next they met.

‘I see no enemy,’ her husband said now.

She nodded. Yes, this was the crisis afflicting her people, and so they looked to their Warchief. In need of a direction, a purpose. Yet he gave them nothing. ‘We have too many young warriors,’ she said. ‘Trained in the ancient ways of fighting, eager to see their swords drink blood-slaughtering a half-broken, exhausted Letherii army did little to whet the appetites of those in our own clan-yet it was enough to ignite envy and feuding with virtually everyone else.’

‘Things were simpler among the Imass,’ said Tool.

‘Oh, rubbish!’

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He shot her a glare, and then looked away once more, shoulders slumping. ‘Well, we had purpose.’

‘You had a ridiculous war against a foe that had no real desire to fight you. And so, instead of facing the injustice you were committing, you went and invoked the Ritual of Tellann. Clever evasion, I suppose, if rather insane. What’s so frightening about facing your own mistakes?’

‘Dear wife, you should not ask that question.’

‘Why not?’

He met her eyes again, not with anger this time, but bleak despair. ‘You may find that mistakes are all you have.’

She grew very still, chilled despite the burgeoning heat of the morning. ‘Oh, and for you, does that include me?’

‘No, I speak to help you understand an Imass who was once a T’lan.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘With you, with our children, I had grown to believe that such things were at last behind me-those dread errors and the burden of all they yielded. And then, in an instant… I am reminded of my own stupidity. It does no good to ignore one’s own flaws, Hetan. The delusion comforts, but it can prove fatal.’

‘You’re not dead.’

‘Am I not?’

She snorted and turned away. ‘You’re just as bad as your sister!’ Then wheeled back to him. ‘Wake up! Your twenty-seven clans are down to nineteen-how many more will you lose because you can’t be bothered to make a decision?’

His eyes narrowed on her. ‘What would you have me decide?’ he asked quietly.

‘We are White Face Barghast! Find us an enemy! ’ pqdm.com