Dust of Dreams

lost most of his troop, and this had been fuel enough to set ablaze the Khundryl fury, inflicting wrathful vengeance upon wounded soldiers and the civilian inhabitants of the town.
    The taste of that slaughter left a bitter, toxic stain, inside and out.
    His horse could not hold still. Her slashed flank still bled freely. She circled, head tossing, kicking with the wounded hind leg.
    They’d left scores of corpses in that nameless town. This very morning it had been a peaceful place, life awakening and crawling on to the old familiar trails, a slow beating heart. Now it was ruin and charred meat—they’d not even bothered looting, so fierce upon them was the lust for slaughter.
    To a proud people, the contempt of others drives the deepest wound. These Bolkando had thought the Khundryl knives were dull. Dull knives, dull minds. They had thought they could cheat the savages, mock them, ply them with foul liquor and steal their wealth.
    We are Seven Cities—did you think you were the first to try to play such games with us?
    Stragglers were still emerging—three, two, a lone wounded warrior slumped over his saddle, two more.
    The soldiers of the garrison had not understood how to meet a cavalry charge. It was as if they had never before seen such a thing, gaping at the precise execution, the deadly timing of the javelins launched when the two sides were but a dozen paces apart. The Bolkando line—formed up across the main street—had crumpled as the barbed javelins punched through shield and scale armour, as figures reeled, buckled and fouled others.
    The Khundryl warhorses and their howling, scimitar-slashing riders then smashed into that tattered formation.
    A slaughter. Until the rear sections of the Bolkando dispersed, scattering into clumps, pelting into the side avenues, the alleys, the sheltered mouths of stone-faced shops. The battle broke up then, knots spinning away. Khundryl warriors were forced to dismount, unable to press into the narrower alleys, or draw back out into the open soldiers crouched behind drawn-up shields in the niches of doorways. Still outnumbered, warriors of the Burned Tears began falling.
    It had taken most of the morning to hunt down and butcher the last garrison soldier. And barely a bell to murder the townsfolk who had not fled—who had, presumably, imagined that seventy-five soldiers would prevail against a mere thirty savages—and then set fire to the town, roasting alive the few who had successfully hidden themselves.
    Such scenes, Vedith knew, were raging across the entire countryside now. Noone was spared, and to deliver the message in the clearest way imaginable, every Bolkando farm was being stripped of anything and everything edible or otherwise useful. The revolt had been ignited by the latest Bolkando price hike—a hundred per cent, applicable only to the Khundryl—on all necessities, including fodder for the horses.
Revile us, yes, even as you take our silver and gold.
    He had a dozen warriors with him now, one of them likely to die soon—well before they reached the encampment. And thick splinters rode up his forearm like extra longbones, pain throbbing.
    Yes, the losses had been high. But then, what other troop had attacked a garrisoned town?
    Still, he wondered if, perhaps, the Burned Tears had kicked awake the wrong nest.
    ‘Bind Sidab’s wounds,’ he now said in a growl. ‘Has he his sword?’
    ‘He has, Vedith.’
    ‘Give it to me—mine broke.’
    Although he was dying and knew it, Sidab lifted his head at this and showed Vedith a red smile.
    ‘It shall weight my hand as did my father’s sword,’ Vedith said. ‘I shall wield it with pride, Sidab.’
    The man nodded, smile fading. He coughed out a gout of blood and then slid out of his saddle, thumping heavily on to the cobbled road.
    ‘Sidab stays behind.’
    The others nodded and spat to make a circle round the corpse, thus sanctifying the ground, completing the only funeral ceremony needed for Khundryl warriors on the path of war. Vedith reached out and took up the reins of Sidab’s horse. He would take the beast as well, and ride it, to ease his own mount’s discomfort. ‘We return to Warleader Gall. Our words shall make his eyes shine.’
     
    Warleader Gall sagged back into his antler and rope throne, the knots creaking. ‘Coltaine’s sweet breath,’ he sighed, squeezing shut his eyes.
    Jarabb, Tear Runner to the warleader and the only other occupant of Gall’s tent, removed his