The Bonehunters/Chapter 12

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12
==Olphara Forest==
Karsa Orlong is butchering a Bhederin in the Olphara Forest when Samar Dev informs him they have visitors. A group of small and wiry tribal people with painted faces emerge from the trees dressed in tanned hides and carrying spears. Their leader kneels in supplication with an outstretched offering before the Teblor, who commands him to stand. Karsa says the newcomers are forced to hide here in the wilderness because they do not stand up for themselves enough. Samar Dev tries to serve as an intermediary, criticising the Teblor's lack of diplomacy. 
At Karsa's demand, the man introduces himself as Boatfinder of the Anibar people. They are beset by invaders who come into their lands from ships and kill anyone in their path without cause. These revenants have flesh the hue of death and eyes cold as ice. They bear iron weapons and are accompanied by shamans who kill with their poisonous breath. Boatfinder seeks the great warrior's aid in protecting his people. Karsa is infuriated by the man's story and is about to vow to kill all of the intruders and sink their ships when Samar Dev convinces him to settle on driving the slayers away. The Teblor agrees and the Anibar take over butchering the bhederin for Karsa while Boatfinder leads them north.
Along the way, Boatfinder tells Karsa and Samar Dev that Karsa's T'lan Imass stone sword, which he calls birth-stone, recalls the words of their Iron Prophet, the one known as King Iskar Jarak. The Anibar had once lived on the plains near the land of the Ugari when the Mezla came against the Ugari. Many Ugari tried to hide amongst the Anibar, but the Mezla followed and there was a Great Slaying. The Anibar feared the Mezla would come for them next but Iskar Jarak came among them with his warriors to say the Anibar were not his enemy. But he warned them that others would come and they would be without mercy, so he counseled them to flee. And so the Anibar fled west and north to their current home. Boatfinder recalls that Iskar Jarak told them wielders of the birth-stone would one day come in the time of their greatest peril to defend them.
Samar Dev realises Iskar Jarak was himself a Mezla and asks Boatfinder where the Iron Prophet's kingdom is. The man tears up when he says that is an answer his people are yearning to find. But the answer is locked in the past where they cannot go, because the past is beyond a bridge that burns.
==Olphara Peninsula==
Taralack Veed and Icarium follow the coastline of the Kokakal Sea along the Olphara Peninsula. They will soon strike westward into the peninsula's interior, which Taralack warns is inhabited by blood-thirsty savages. Icarium remains quiet, his demeanour dark and dour. The Gral thinks on how the Nameless Ones had assigned him to the Jhag's service in place of Mappo Runt, where Icarium had become a dull blade under the Trell's watch. Now Taralack, following the cult's precise instructions, will serve as a whetstone. Feeling the growing weight of his duty, Taralack realises he will one day envy Mappo's merciful death.
Icarium abruptly begins quizzing Taralack Veed about the people he calls savages, knocking holes in his companion's explanations for their behaviour. Pointing out the Gral seems to know much of a place he has never before visited, the Jhag concludes Taralack was prepared by someone to serve as his companion. The Gral attempts to steer him away from these thoughts, claiming they had heard these tales together in their journeys before the Jhag forgot. Icarium bristles against the idea that his ignorance has left him innocent, and Taralack notes the Jhag no longer addresses him as "friend". 
To return his trust, Taralack reveals the truth of Icarium's past as prepared for him by the Nameless Ones. Long ago Icarium had been driven to free his father from an Azath House. In his terrible rage, he destroyed the House, wounded a shattered warren, and released a host of demonic entities upon the world. The destruction had torn away his memory in the process. Ironically, the Jhag's failure had all been for nought. His father was no prisoner, having chosen to serve the Azath as Guardian. From this deed came the Nameless Ones, who ever since readied loyal companions to serve Icarium, and guide his fury with a moral focus. Ahead of them on this journey, Taralack announces, awaits a new enemy that only Icarium is powerful enough to oppose.
Icarium weeps into his hands before reporting that the journey will not be as long as Taralack thinks. The sea nearby is filled with ships. 
==Sialk Odhan==
Months after the surprise appearance of the T'lan Imass, Barathol Mekhar stands at the site of a massacre outside his hamlet in the Sialk Odhan. He had thought the T'lan Imass long departed until they struck down and massacred a party of five travellers on the road. By the time the villager's cries had summoned him to the scene, the killers were already gone. The blacksmith thought it a lost cause, but the old woman, Nulliss, who had modest skills as a healer, took over the scene, working on a man whose intestines had been spilled out and tending a bleeding pregnant woman who is in labour. Nearby Barathol spots the deflated corpse of some kind of demon and the dismembered body of an old man covered in tiger-like tattoos. The villagers carry the woman and dying man back to their homes just as a lone rider appears from the western hills atop a lathered horse.
It is L'oric and he is too late. Filled with grief and shock, he looks upon the bodies of Heboric and Greyfrog and tells Barathol he has come from the Queen of Dreams to collect Felisin Younger, who is nowhere to be found. Recognising the High Mage, Barathol convinces him to use his skills as Denul to save Felisin's surviving companions. L'oric is irked by his tone of chastisement.
At the old hostelry that has been turned into a makeshift hospital, Scillara has given birth to a girl with Napan blue skin. Both mother and child will live. L'oric uses his magic to clean and seal Cutter's wounds, allowing the young man a chance to recover. Afterwards, the High Mage identifies their attackers to Barathol as The Unbound, servants of the Crippled God, and ruminates on the war between the Gods and its spillover onto the lives of mortals. He says that if the Unbound have taken Felisin away, then he will pursue her no more. She is beyond his ability to help and the Queen of Dreams' gambit has failed. At the same time, he wonders why the death of Greyfrog has not left him with the pain normally caused by the severing of the bond between master and familiar. Barathol offers him a place to stay for the night, leaving to find him food and stable his horse.
When Barathol returns, he finds an angry L'oric with his sword drawn and the villagers backed against the walls of the hostelry. The High Mage had overheard one of them use Barathol's name and he now confronts the blacksmith as the infamous betrayer of Aren. Barathol shrugs at L'oric's accusations that he is in hiding and recalls the running battle from Aren to Karashimesh against those pursuers who had sought to kill him. None survived his blade. He tells L'oric that he knows nothing of the true events at Aren, that the massacre of the city by the T'lan Imass began before he was reputed to have opened the gates to them--not that the T'lan Imass even needed an open gate to enter the city. The exhausted mage gives up and resheathes his weapon, realising Barathol had initially thought the Unbound had come for him.
==A Cliffside West of the Sialk Odhan==
A grey haze leaves Felisin Younger, who finds she can once again see clearly and feel her body again after the attack on her group. She stands at the base of a cliff surrounded by T'lan Imass, their swords bloodied, and one maintains an iron grip on her arm. Her friends are dead. An old man dressed in rags scrabbles out of a fissure in the cliff's face to fall to his knees and welcome her. She is the Chosen One, brought to the entrance of their ancient, buried city just as was promised. Finally tugging free of the deathly hand, Felisin is soon upset to recognise the nearby road as one she and her friends had travelled weeks earlier. She angrily demands to leave, but the man says there is nowhere to go, and soon she will be the leader of the greatest cult of Seven Cities, which will grow to sweep across every sea and ocean. 
He explains that Poliel, the Mistress of Disease, has bowed before the Crippled God and sent a plague across the continent. The plague has left entire cities filled with bodies, but it did not take everyone. Those who survived, marked by blood and rot, were called to this place by the Whispers to join the Chosen One. He is the first to arrive, her seneschal. When asked his name, the man introduces himself as Kulat and names her Sha'ik Reborn, Chosen Hand of the Apocalypse. He says the Apocalypse is not just a rebellion, but a devastation of the land and spirit. Only once death takes them all, can they find salvation.
==Ugarat Odhan==
Iskaral Pust agitatedly scurries about the campfire on the dark Ugarat Odhan, the chattering of his spoken thoughts informing Mappo that Mogora has fled and "they" are coming. When the Trell stands and asks if they are in danger, Pust acidly replies, "Of course we're in danger, you oafish fool" before attempting to laugh off his words as the Hounds of Shadow step out of the dark. The Hounds are followed by Cotillion, and Pust attempts to ingratiate himself with his master's companion. Cotillion informs Pust that his success with Dejim Nebrahl exceeded his expectations. The High Priest offers the god tea as the Hounds settle in.
Cotillion tells Mappo it pleases him that the Trell is well before broaching the subject of Icarium. He says the Jhag's destruction of the Azath House burned a chaotic energy into his soul, something like an infection. It must be expunged if Icarium is to be saved. Mappo is incredulous. This is nothing like anything the Nameless Ones have ever told him. The god says he and Shadowthrone earned this knowledge during their path to Ascendancy. As emperor and chief assassin, they had attempted to map and achieve power over every Azath House. But when it became obvious that such a task would take more than one mortal lifetime, they undertook to make themselves gods.
In their study of the Houses, the pair learned they were more than just prisons and portals--they were also the repositories of the Lost Elementals. The Houses take their immense power from elementals other than the four generally recognised by scholars (water, fire, earth, and air). The god mentions life, death, dark, light, shadow, past, present, future, desire, deed, sound, silence, faith, and denial as possible candidates within a complex web of elemental relationships. Mappo is shocked that anyone could attempt to master such power and confesses he hopes they fail. Cotillion admits they would have ultimately left the power to the Houses but for one conclusion: The control of the Azath Houses is failing. He thinks the Nameless Ones know this too, and their desperation is further driving the Houses towards chaos and dissolution. So Cotillion and Shadowthrone decided to intervene and save Mappo's life.
Cotillion tells Mappo that Icarium has earned an end to his torment, advising the Trell to continue on the Jhag's trail. He warns that a great Convergence is coming and asks Mappo not to give up hope. The god believes Mappo will one day stand between Icarium and the Nameless Ones and he will not fail his friend. The god and Hounds depart back into the darkness. Iskaral Pust announces that Mappo will succeed in his task, while loudly whimpering they are both doomed. Mogora returns momentarily with an armful of firewood.