Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1)

Forge of Darkness (The Kharkanas Trilogy #1) Page 31

No, that made no sense. If she ‘Captain,’ said the warrior opposite her, his sharp tone snapping her out of her confused thoughts, ‘without trust there can be no peace. You, among all of us, know this as truth. In this gift, we shall find a name, and it shall be a name of honour.’

Haut slowly nodded — all at the table were now silent, listening. ‘And you wish to twine your gesture with that which I have the power to give to you. In return for what?’

‘Peace.’

‘I have peace, Rusk.’

The spokesman grinned, showing filed teeth. ‘Nothing lasts for ever.’

Haut grunted, reaching again for his cup. ‘Did your defeat at the hands of the Tiste teach you hounds nothing?’

Rusk’s grin vanished, and it was Sagral who answered, ‘You have no Borderswords. You have no Urusander’s Legion. You have no Houseblades of the High Families. What have we learned, captain? Your army is gone. This is what we have learned.’

‘We never had an army, Sagral,’ Haut replied, the vertical slits of his pupils narrowing as if in bright light. ‘We are Jaghut. Armies are anathema, and we have no taste for war. When facing fools who proclaim themselves our enemy, we simply destroy them. And we are thorough. For centuries you have tested us, and each time we have flung you back.’

‘We came in small packs,’ Sagral said in a growl. ‘This time, we shall come in our thousands.’

‘And when you came to raid, in your small packs, Sagral, we were content to drive you off, killing only a few of you. Should you now come in your thousands, our restraint is at an end.’

Rusk had been sucking on crystals of sugar, one after another, his small eyes fixed on Korya, and now he said, ‘We will return her home unharmed, captain.’

‘This is not how the hostage system works,’ Haut answered, slowly shaking his head. ‘Your treaty with the Tiste demands from you hostages — of your own blood. You cannot borrow one from someone else in lieu of the sacrifice you must make. The Tiste will accept only Jheleck hostages.’

‘But they offer none to us!’ Sagral snapped.

‘Because you lost the war, Sagral. You were faced with a simple choice: concessions or annihilation. By your presence we see which choice you made; now you must live with it or plunge once more into war.’

‘The Jheleck are not slaves!’

Haut glanced at Korya. ‘Hostage, do you consider yourself a slave?’

She knew the answer he expected from her, but it was the thought of travelling in the company of these beasts that motivated her reply. ‘Of course not. I am Tiste, born of House Delack. I am hostage to the Jaghut; the only hostage to ever have come to the Jaghut, and now the only one who ever will. In two years I will be returned to my family: the Jaghut tell us they are no longer a people. They tell us they have surrendered all claims.’

Sagral thumped the table, startling her. ‘Even their claim to you, child! It is only Haut’s selfishness that keeps you in his clutches! We will deliver you home, and we can leave with the dawn! Do you not wish this, or has Haut crushed the life from you? Made you a slave in all but name?’ He reared back, on his feet. ‘Even the Tiste know to disregard the Jaghut now — these tusked fools are nothing. They have abandoned the future and are doomed to die out. Their city lies in a bed of dust, ruled over by a mad man! You, hostage! You waste your life away here — two more years! For nothing!’

Korya had twisted in her chair to look up at him. She studied his rage-darkened face, the gleam of his bared teeth and their sharpened tips, the challenge in his eyes. Then she faced Rusk and asked, ‘Does this one need a leash?’

The sudden laughter stole the tension from the room, and all down the length of the table Jheleck warriors reached once more for the wine jugs. Sagral thumped back down, silent with shame. Bested by a Tiste female barely a woman — if that boyish frame was any indication — and made a pup once more was dour Sagral, kicked cowering into the cold — and all these biting comments were spoken in Jaghut, for her benefit, no doubt. When Korya glanced at Haut, she saw his pale eyes fixed upon her. She could never read them — neither approval nor disgust could alter that look; it was steady and unrelenting.

Captain. There had never been a Jaghut army. He had never been a captain of anything. The honorific made no sense at all.

Some unseen signal quelled the raucousness once more, and then Rusk spoke. ‘Captain, the Tiste have asked for fifty hostages. Fifty of our young ones. We will not surrender the lives of fifty Jheleck, young or old.’