Toll The Hounds by Steven Erikson

Author:Steven Erikson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0553824465
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2011-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Beneath the battered shield of the sky

The man sits in a black saddle atop a black horse

His hair long and grey drifting out round his iron helm

Knowing nothing of how he came to be here

Only that where he has come to be is nowhere

And where he must go is perhaps near

His beard is the hue of dirty snow

His eyes are eyes that will never thaw

Beneath him the horse does not breathe

Nor does the man and the wind moans hollow

Along the dents of his rusty scaled hauberk

And it is too much to shift about to the approach

Of riders one from his right the other from his left

On dead horses with empty eyes they rein in

Settle silent with strange familiarity

Flanking easy his natural command

Beneath these three the ground is lifeless

And within each ashes are stirred in the dirge

Of grim recollections that slide seeping into regret

But all is past and the horses do not move

And so he glances rightward with jaw clenching

Upon the one-eyed regard he once knew though not well

Answering the wry smile with sudden need

So he asks, 'Are they waiting, Corporal?'

'Bequeathed and loose on the dead plain, Sergeant,

And was this not what you wanted?'

To that he can but shrug and set gaze upon the other

'I see your garb and know you, sir, yet do not.'

Black beard and visage dark, a brow like cracked basalt

A man heavy in armour few could stand in

And he meets the observance with a grimace

'Then know, if you will, Brukhalian of the Grey Swords.'

Beneath these three thunder rides the unproven earth

Nothing sudden but growing like an awakening heart

And the echoes roll down from the shield overhead

As iron reverberates the charge of what must be

'So once more, the Bridgeburners march to war.'

To which Brukhalian adds, 'Too the Grey Swords who fell

And this you call Corporal was reborn only to die,

A new bridge forged between you and me, good sir.'

They turn then on their unbreathing mounts

To review the ranks arrayed in grainy mass on the plain

Onward to war from where and what they had once been

When all that was known is all that one knows again

And in this place the heather never blooms

The blood to be spilled never spills and never flows

Iskar Jarak, Bird That Steals, sits astride a black horse

And looks to command once more

Sword and Shield

Fisher kel Tath

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