Dust of Dreams

hard as stone, a fist that but awaited its victim.
    He would find them.
    Nothing else mattered. The First Sword had not bound his kin—a dread error, for Kalt knew that wars raged within each and every one of them. He could feel as much, swirls of conflicting desires, awakened hungers and needs. An army must kneel before a single master. Without that obeisance, each warrior stood alone, tethers loose, and at the first instant of conflict each would seek his or her own path. The First Sword, in his refusal to command, had lost his army.
    He was a fool. He had forgotten what it meant to rule. Whatever he sought, whatever he found, he would discover that he was alone.
    First Sword. What did the title mean? Skill with his weapon—none would deny that Onos T’oolan possessed that, else he would never have earned the title. But surely there was more to it. The strength to impose his will. The qualities of true leadership. The arrogance of command and the expectation that such commands would be followed unquestioningly. Onos T’oolan possessed none of these traits. He had failed the first time, had he not? And now, he would fail again.
    Kalt Urmanal would trail in the wake of the First Sword, but he would not follow him.
    The Jaghut played games with us. They painted themselves in the guises of gods. It amused them. Our indignation stung to life became a rage of unrelenting determination. But it was misplaced. In our awakening to their games, they had no choice but to withdraw. The secret laid bare ended the game. The wars were not necessary. Our pursuit acquired the mien of true madness, and in assuming it we lost ourselves . . . for all time.
    The Jaghut were the wrong enemy. The Ritual should have been enacted in the name of a war against the K’Chain Che’Malle. They were the ones who hunted us. For food. For sport. They were the ones who saw us as nothing more than meat. They would descend upon our camps sleek with the oils of cruel, senseless slaughter, and loved ones died.
    Indignation? The word is too weak for what I feel. For all of us who were victims of the K’Chain Che’Malle.
    First Sword, you lead us nowhere—we are all done with the Jaghut. We no longer care. Our cause is dead, its useless bones revealed to each and every one of us. We have kicked through them and now the path stretches clear—but these paths we do not share with our kin.
    So, why do we follow you here and now? Why do we step in time with you? You tell us nothing. You do not even acknowledge our existence. You are worse than the Jaghut.
    He knew of Olar Ethil, the bonecaster who had cursed them into eternal suffering. For her, he felt nothing. She was as stupid as the rest. As blind, as mistaken as all the other bonecasters who folded their power into the Ritual.
Will you fight her, First Sword? If so, then you will do it alone. We are nothing to you, and so you are nothing to us.
    Do not let the eyes deceive. We are no army.
    We are no army.
     
    Nom Kala found the bonecaster Ulag Togtil at her side. He was, without question, the biggest warrior among the Imass she had ever seen. Trell blood. She wondered what he had looked like in the flesh. Frightening, no doubt, broad-mouthed and tusked, his eyes small as an ice boar’s. She had few memories of Trell—they were all but gone in her time, among the first to be driven from the face of the earth by the humans. Indeed, she was not even certain her memories were true ones, rather than something bled into her by the Orshayn.
    Sour blood, that. A deluge of vicious sentiments, confused desires, depthless despair and pointless rage. She felt under assault—these Orshayn were truly tortured, spiritually destroyed. But neither she nor her kin had acquired any skill in fending off this incessant flood. They had never before experienced the like.
    From the First Sword himself, however, there was nothing. Not a single wisp of thought escaped him, not a hint of emotion. Was he simply lifeless, there in his soul? Or was his self-command so absolute that even her most determined assaults upon his thoughts simply slid off, weak as rain on stone? The mystery that was Onos T’oolan dogged her.
    ‘A measure of mercy,’ Ulag said, intruding upon her thoughts.
    ‘What is, Bonecaster?’
    ‘You bleed as well, Nom Kala. We are all wayward. Bone trembles, darkness spins in what remains of our eyes. We believe we are the creators of our thoughts, our feelings, but I think otherwise.’
    ‘Do