Dust of Dreams

twins—
    Husband, I have betrayed you! In my misery, in my pathetic self-pity—I knew, I knew this was coming, how could it not? My children—I have abandoned them.
    They killed them, husband. They killed our children!
    ‘Lift up to meet me, whore.’
    Krin, I used to laugh at your hunger for me, sick as it was. Does my father’s ghost wait for you, Krin? Does he witness this, and what you demand of me?
    Does he understand my shame?
    Krin now punishes me. He is only the first, but no matter how many there are, the punishment will never be enough.
    Now . . . now I understand the mind of a hobbled woman. I understand.
    And she lifted up to meet him.
     
    The wretches saw him before he saw them, and they saw, too, the heavy knife in his hand.
    None would deny that the twins were clever, nasty creatures, in the manner of newborn snakes, and so when they spun round and fled, Sathand Gril was not surprised. But one of them was burdened with a child, and that child was now screaming.
    Oh, they might silence him in the only way possible—a suffocating hand over his mouth and nose, thus sparing Sathand the blood on his own hands—and he waited for that as he plunged in pursuit, but the shrieks went on.
    He could run them down, and so he would, eventually. He was sure they knew that they were already dead. Well, if they would make it a game, he would play. One last gesture of childhood, before he took childhood away. Would they squeal when he caught them? An interesting question. If not immediately, then later, yes, later they would squeal indeed.
    Scrabbling sounds ahead, at the slumped end of a rock-walled defile, and Sathand lumbered forward—yes, there was one of them, with that boy in her arms, trying to climb up the scree—
    The boulder very nearly killed him, dropping down to hammer into his shoulder. He howled in pain, stumbled—caught the flash of the other twin up on the edge of the wall to his left. ‘You rotted piece of dung!’ he snarled. ‘You will pay for that!’
    No longer a game. He would give them hurt for hurt, and then more. He would make them regret such stupid attempts.
    Ahead, the girl with the boy had given up trying to climb the fan of sand and gravel, and had instead dropped down and to the right, vanishing into a crevasse. A moment later the other girl darted in after her sister.
    The whole thing had been an act. A trap. So clever, weren’t they?
    Mind blackening with fury, he bolted after them.
     
    Setoc was tugging at his arms. ‘Cafal! Get up!’
    It was too late. He was seeing all there was to see. Cursed by his own gods.Could he close hands about their necks, one by one, and choke the life from them, he vowed he would.
    His beloved sister—he had screamed as the hatchet chopped down. He had fallen to his knees when Krin stepped up to her, and now he sought to claw out his own eyes—although the visions behind them proved indifferent to the damage done to them. Blood ran with tears—he would dig and dig until never again would he look upon the world—but it seemed that blindness would for ever elude him.
    He watched Krin rape his bloodkin. He heard the exhortations from the hundreds of warriors gathered round. He saw Bakal, gaunt and his eyes luminous, stumble into view, saw the man’s horror as all the blood left his face, saw as the great slayer of Onos Toolan twisted round and fled, as if the Warleader’s ghostly hand was reaching for him. But it was just the rape of a hobbled woman—not even considered rape, in fact. Just . . .
using.
    And Sathand Gril, whom he had hunted beside in years past, was now hunting Stavi and Storii, and Absi who flailed in Stavi’s arms as if in full awareness that this new world he had found was crumbling around him, that death was coming to take him before he could as much as taste it. And the boy was outraged, indignant, defiant. Confused. Terrified.
    Too much. No heart could withstand such visions.
    Setoc tugged at his arms, fought to keep his hands from his face. ‘We must keep going! The wolves—’
    ‘Hood take the wolves!’
    ‘But he won’t, you fool! He won’t—but someone will! We must hurry, Cafal—’
    His hand lashed out, caught her flush on the side of her head. The way her neck twisted round as she fell horrified him. Crying out, he crawled to her.
    The wolves were ghosts no longer. Blood clouded his eyes, dripped down in a mockery of tears. ‘Setoc!’ She was still a child, still so young, so thin—
    The