Dust of Dreams

and staggered outside. Three paces and then she turned about. She heard the thump of stones from the ceiling. The horse shrilled in pain. From the gaping entrance Cafal appeared, followed a moment later by Torrent, who had somehow brought his mount down on to its knees. He held the reins and with rapid twitches on them he urged his horse forward. Its head thrust into view, eyes flashing in the reflected lantern light.
    Setoc had never before seen a horse crawl—she had not thought it even possible, but here this mare was lurching through the gap, sheathed in dust and streaks of sweat. More rocks tumbled behind the beast and she squealed in pain, lunging, forelimbs scrabbling as she lifted herself up from the front end.
    Moments after the animal finally lumbered clear the moss-humped roof of the barrow collapsed in thunder and dust. Decades-old trees that had grown upon it toppled in a thrash of branches and leaves. Wood splintered.
    Blood streamed from the mare’s haunches. Torrent had calmed the beast once more and was tending to the gashes. ‘Not so bad,’ he muttered. ‘Had she broken a hip . . .’
    Setoc saw that the warrior was trembling. This bond he had forged with his hapless mare stood in place of all those ties that had been so cruelly severed from his young life, and it was fast becoming something monstrous.
‘If she must die, then I will die with her.’ Madness, Torrent. It’s a damned horse, a dumb beast with its spirit broken by bit and rein. If she’d a broken hip or leg, we’d eat well this day.
    She watched Cafal observing the Awl for a time, before he turned away and scanned the forest surrounding them. Then he lifted his eyes to the heavens. ‘No moons,’ he said. ‘And the stars seem . . . hazy—there’s not enough of them. No constellations I recognize.’
    ‘There are no wolves here.’
    He faced her.
    ‘Their ghosts, yes. But . . . none living. They last ran here centuries past. Centuries.’
    ‘Well, there’s deer scat and trails—so they didn’t starve to death.’
    ‘No. Hunted.’ She hugged herself. ‘Tell me the mind of those who would kill every last wolf, who would choose to never again hear their mournful howls, or to see—with a shiver—a pack standing proud on a rise. Great Warlock, explain this to me, for I do not understand.’
    He shrugged. ‘We hate rivals, Setoc. We hate seeing the knowing burn in their eyes. You have not seen civilized lands. The animals go away. And they never return. They leave silence, and that silence is filled with the chatter of our kind. Given the ability, we kill even the night.’ His eyes fell to the lantern in her hand.
    Scowling, she doused it.
    In the sudden darkness, Torrent cursed. ‘That does not help, wolf-child. We light fires, but the darkness remains—in our minds. Cast light within and you will not like what you see.’
    A part of her wanted to weep. For the ghosts. For herself. ‘We need to find a way home.’
    Cafal sighed. ‘There is power here. Unfamiliar. Even so, perhaps I can make use of it. I sense it . . . fragmented, shredded. It has, I think, not been used in a long, long time.’ He looked round. ‘I must clear a space. Sanctify it.’
    ‘Even without Talamandas?’ Torrent asked.
    ‘He would have been of little help here,’ Cafal replied. ‘His bindings all severed.’ He glanced at Setoc. ‘You, wolf-child, can help.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Summon the wolf ghosts.’
    ‘No.’ The thought made her feel wretched. ‘I can give them nothing in return.’
    ‘Perhaps, a way through. Into another world, even our own, where they will find living kin, where they will run unseen shoulder to shoulder with them, and remember the hunt, old loyalties, sparks of love.’
    She eyed him. ‘Is such a thing possible?’
    ‘I don’t know. But, let us try. I do not like this world. Even in this forest, the air is tainted. Foul. We have most of the night ahead of us. Let us do what we can to be gone before the sun rises. Before we are discovered.’
    ‘Sanctify your ground, then,’ Setoc said.
    She walked off into the wood, sat down upon the mossy trunk of a fallen tree—no, a tree that had been cut down, cleanly—no axe could have managed such level precision. Why then had it been simply left here? ‘There is madness here,’ she whispered. Closing her eyes, she sought to drive the bleak thoughts away.
    Ghosts! Wolves! Listen to my mind’s howl! Hear the sorrow, the anger! Hear my