He kicked again at the embers, the too-small branches that had made up this shortlived fire, saw countless twigs fall into white ash. A few picked bones were visible amidst the coals, all that remained of the pathetic creature he had devoured earlier this night.
A smear of clouds cut a swath across the face of the stars and the dust-veiled moon had yet to rise. Somewhere out on the plain coyotes bickered with the night. He had found trader tracks this past day, angling northwest-southeast. Well-worn wagon ruts, the tramping of yoked oxen. Garbage strewn to either side. Rather dis shy;appointing, all things considered; he had grown used to solitude, where the only sign of human activity had been the occasional grassfire on the western horizon — plains nomads and their mysterious ways — something to do with the bhederin herds and the needs for various grasses, he suspected. If they spied him they wisely kept their distance. His passing through places had a way of agitating ancient spirits, a detail he had once found irritating enough to hunt the things down and kill them, but no longer. Let them whine and twitch, thrash and moan in the grip of timorous nightmares, and all that. Let their mortal children cower in the high grasses until he was well and gone.
The High King had other concerns. And other matters with which he could occupy his mind.
He sat straighter, every sense stung awake by a burgeoning of power to the north. Slowly rising to his feet, Kallor stared into the darkness. Yes, something foaming awake, what might it be? And. . yes,
Breath hissed between worn teeth. Of course, if he continued on this path he would have come full circle, back to that horrid place — what was its name? Yes, Coral. The whole mess with the Pannion Domin, oh, the stupidity! The pathetic, squalid idiocy of that day!
Could this be those two accursed hunters? Had they somehow swept round him? Were they now striking south to finally face him? Well, he might welcome that. He’d killed his share of dragons, both pure and Soletaken.
For all this time, their pursuit had been a clumsy, witless thing. So easily fooled, led astray — he could have ambushed them countless times, and perhaps he should have done just that. At the very least, he might have come to understand the source of their persistent — yes, pathological — relentlessness. Had he truly angered Rake that much? It seemed ridiculous. The Son of Darkness was not one to become so obsessed; indeed, none of the Tiste Andii were, and was that not their fundamental weakness? This failing of will?
How he had so angered Korlat and Orfantal? Was it because he did not stay, did not elect to fight alongside all the doomed fools on that day?
The twin flaring of powers ebbed suddenly.
Somewhere far to the east the coyotes resumed their frantic cries.
He looked skyward, saw the gleam of the rising moon, its ravaged scowl of reflected sunlight and the blighted dust of its stirred slumber.
A final kick at the coals. Let the grasses burn to scar his wake, he cared not. No, he would not come full circle — he never did, which was what had kept him alive for this long. No point in changing anything, was there?
Kallor set out. Northward. There were, if he recalled, settlements, and roads, and a main trader track skirling west and north, out across the Cinnamon Wastes, all the way to Darujhistan.
Where he had an appointment to keep. A destiny to claim by right of sword and indomitable will.
The moon’s light took hold of his shadow and made a mess of it. Kallor walked on, oblivious of such details.
