Hairlock laughed again, swinging his mad stare to Toc. He gestured.
Paran cried out, twisting to see Toc thrown from his mount. The Claw cartwheeled through the air. A jagged tear opened in the air in front of him. Paran shouted a second time in helpless horror as Toc the Younger plunged into that tear and disappeared into swirling mists. The rent closed with a snap, leaving no sign of Paran's companion.
Hairlock descended slowly to the ground. The puppet paused to adjust his tattered clothing, then strode towards Paran.
“I thought it might be you,” Hairlock sniggered. “Isn't vengeance sweeter than honey, eh, Captain? Your death will be long, protracted and very, very painful. Imagine my pleasure at seeing you like this!”
Paran pushed with his legs. The horse's body fell back, freeing him. He scrambled to his feet and dived for his sword, grasping it while rolling, then regained his feet.
Hairlock watched in evident amusement and began to advance. “That weapon is not for me, Captain. It'll not even cut me. So,” the puppet came on, “wail away.”
Paran raised the weapon, a wave of despair coming over him.
Hairlock stopped and cocked his head. He whirled to face the north.
“Impossible!” the puppet snarled.
Now Paran caught what Hairlock had already heard: the howling of Hounds.
In the hut Quick Ben had watched the ambush, dumbfounded. What was Paran doing? Where was Tattersail? “Hood's Path,” he'd whispered angrily,” talk about losing track!” In any case, it had all happened too fast for him to prevent the loss of the one-eyed man accompanying the captain.
His eyes flew open and he snatched the scrap of cloth. “Sorry,” he hissed. “Sorry! Hear me, woman! I know you. I know who you are. Cotillion, Patron of Assassins, the Rope, I call upon you!”
He felt a presence enter his mind, followed by a man's voice. “Well done, Quick Ben.”
The wizard said, “I have a message for you, Rope. For Shadowthrone.”
He felt a heightened tension in his head. “A deal's been struck. Your lord's Hounds hunger for vengeance. I haven't time to explain it all now-leave that to Shadowthrone. I am about to give to you the location of the one Shadowthrone seeks.”
He heard wry amusement in the Rope's voice. “I provide the link, correct? The means by which you stay alive in all this. I congratulate you, Quick Ben. Few mortals have ever succeeded in avoiding my lord's inclination to double-cross. It seems you have outwitted him. Very well, convey to me this location. Shadowthrone will receive it immediately.”
Quick Ben cast forth Hairlock's precise position on the Rhivi Plain. He only hoped the Hounds would arrive in time. He had a lot of questions for Paran, and wanted the captain to reach them alive but he had to admit that the chances of that were slight.
All that remained for the wizard now was to prevent the puppet's escape. He smiled again. That was something he looked forward to.
Onos T'oolan had squatted before the standing stone since dawn. In the hours since, Lorn had wandered the nearby hills, at war with herself. She now knew with a certainty that what they were doing was wrong, that its consequences went far beyond the petty efforts of a mundane Empire The T'lan Imass worked in the span of millennia, their purposes their own..Yet their endless war had become her endless war. Laseen's Empire was a shadow of the First Empire. The difference lay in that the Imass conducted genocide against another species. Malaz killed its own. Humanity had not climbed up since the dark age of the Imass: it had spiralled down.
The sun stood high overhead. She had last looked upon Tool an hour past. The warrior had not moved an inch. Lorn climbed yet another hill already a quarter-mile distant from the standing stone. She hoped to catch a glimpse of Lake Azur, to the west.
She came to the hill's summit and found herself not thirty feet from four mounted travellers. It was hard to determine who was more surprised, but the Adjunct moved first, her sword rasping into her hands as she sprang to close the distance.
Two were essentially unarmed, a boy and a short fat man. They and one other, a gaudily dressed man now unsheathing a duelling rapier, rode mules. But it was the last man who held Lorn's attention. Fully armoured astride a horse, he was the first to react to her charge. Bellowing, he spurred his mount past the others and unsheathed a bastard sword.
Lorn smiled as the fat man attempted to open a Warren and failed. Her Otataral blade steamed briefly before a cold wash of air poured from it. The fat man, his eyes widening, reeled back in his saddle and promptly rolled over the mule's rump, landing heavily in the dust. The boy leaped down from his own mount and paused, unsure whether to aid the fat man or remove the dagger from his belt. As the armoured man rode past him, he reached his decision and ran to where the fat man had fallen. The one with the rapier had also dismounted and approached in the warrior's wake.
