The weapon would little avail him as a seething cloud of hornets swiftly closed the distance.
The scene was jolted, and Duiker saw they were back in the dead oasis. The D'ivers and Soletaken were gone. The historian turned to Kulp. 'You did it! How?'
The mage glanced down at a sprawled, moaning Sormo E'nath. 'I'll pay for it,' he muttered, then met Duiker's eyes. 'I punched the lad. Damn near broke my hand doing it, too. It was
The historian blinked, then shook himself and crouched down beside Bult. 'This poison will kill him long before we can get help-'
Kulp squatted, ran his good hand over the veteran's swollen face. 'Not poison. More like an infecting warren. I can deal with this, Duiker. As with your legs.' He closed his eyes in concentration.
Sormo E'nath slowly pushed himself into sitting position. He looked around, then tenderly touched his jaw, where the ridged imprint of Kulp's knuckles stood like puckered islands in a spreading flush of red.
'He had no choice,' Duiker told him.
The warlock nodded.
'Can you talk? Any loose teeth?'
'Somewhere,' he said clearly, 'a crow flaps broken-winged on the ground. There are but ten left.'
'What happened there, Warlock?'
Sormo's eyes flicked nervously. 'Something unexpected, Historian. A convergence is underway. The Path of Hands. The gate of the Soletaken and the D'ivers. An unhappy coincidence.'
Duiker scowled. 'You said Tellann-'
'And so it was,' the warlock cut in. 'Is there a blending between shapeshifting and Elder Tellann? Unknown. Perhaps the D'ivers and Soletaken are simply passing through the warren — imagining it unoccupied by T'lan Imass and therefore safer. Indeed, no T'lan Imass to take umbrage with the trespass, leaving them with only each other to battle.'
'They're welcome to annihilate each other, then,' the historian grumbled, his legs slowly giving way beneath him until like Sormo he sat on the ground.
'I shall help you in a moment,' Kulp called over.
Nodding, Duiker found himself watching a dung beetle struggle heroically to push aside a fragment of palm bark. He sensed something profound in what he watched, but was too weary to pursue it.
Bhok'arala seem to have originated in the wastes of Raraku. Before long, these social creatures spread outward and were soon seen throughout Seven Cities. As efficacious rat control in settlements, the bhok'arala were not only tolerated, but often encouraged. It was not long before a lively trade in domesticated breeds became a major export…
The usage and demonic investment of this species among mages and alchemists is a matter for discussion within treatises more specific than this one.
Imrygyn Tallobant
With the exception of the sandstorm — which they had waited out in Trob — and the unsettling news of a massacre at Ladro Keep, told to them by an outrider from a well-guarded caravan bound for Ehrlitan, the journey to within sight of G'danisban had proved uneventful for Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar.
Although Fiddler knew that the risks that lay ahead, south of the small city out in the Pan'potsun Odhan, were severe enough to eat holes in his stomach, he had anticipated a lull in the final approach to G'danisban. What he had not expected to find was a ragtag renegade army encamped outside the city walls.
The army's main force straddled the road but was shielded by a dun line of hills on the north side. The canal road led the three unsuspecting travellers into the camp's perimeter lines. There had been no warning.
A company of footmen commanded the rosad from flanking hills and oversaw diligent questioning of all who sought entry to the city. The company was supported by a score of Arak tribal horsewarriors who were evidently entrusted with riding down any traveller inclined to flee the approach to the makeshift barricade.
Fiddler and his charges would have to ride on through and trust to their disguises. The sapper was anything but confident, although this lent a typically Gral scowl to his narrow features which elicited a wholly proper wariness in two of the three guards who stepped forward to intercept them at the barricade.
'The city is closed,' the unimpressed guard nearest them said, punctuating his words by spitting between the hooves of Fiddler's mount.
It would later be said that even a Gral's horse knew an insult when it saw one. Before Fiddler could react, his mount's head snapped forward, stripping the reins from the sapper's hands, and bit the guardsman in the face. The horse had twisted its head so that the jaws closed round the man's cheeks and tore into cheeks, upper lip and nose. Blood gushed. The guardsman dropped like a sack of stones, a piercing, keening sound rising from him.
