Lenestro collapsed.
Duiker frowned down at the man.
'He's fainted, sir,' List said.
'So he has.' Old man scared you, did he?
'Was that really necessary?' a voice asked plaintively. Nethpara emerged from the crowd. 'As if our ongoing petition is not crowded enough, now we have personal bullying to add to our grievances. Shame on you, Historian—'
'Excuse me, sir,' List said, 'but you might wish to know—before you resume berating the historian—that scholarship came late to this man. You will find his name among the Noted on the First Army's Column at Unta, and had you not just come late to this scene, you would have witnessed an old soldier's temper. Indeed, it was admirable restraint that the historian elected to use both hands to grip Lenestro's cloak, lest he use one to unsheathe that well-worn sword at his hip and drive it through the toad's heart.'
Nethpara blinked sweat from his eyes.
Duiker slowly swung to face List.
The corporal noted the dismay in the historian's face and answered it with a wink. 'We'd best move on, sir,' he said.
They left behind a gathering in the clearing that broke its silence only after they'd entered the opposite aisle.
List walked alongside the historian, leading his horse by the reins. 'It still astonishes me that they persist in the notion that we will survive this journey.'
Duiker glanced over in surprise. 'Are you lacking such faith, then, Corporal?'
'We'll never reach Aren, Historian. Yet the fools compile their petitions, their grievances—against the very people keeping them alive.'
'There's great need to maintain the illusion of order, List. In us all.'
The young man's expression turned wry. 'I missed your moment of sympathy back there, sir.'
'Obviously.'
They left the nobles' encampment and entered the mayhem of the wagons bearing wounded. Voices moaned a constant chorus of pain. A chill crept over Duiker. Even wheeled hospitals carried with them that pervasive atmosphere of fear, the sounds of defiance and the silence of surrender. Mortality's many comforting layers had been stripped away, revealing wracked bones, a sudden comprehension of death that throbbed like an exposed nerve.
Awareness and revelations thickened the prairie air in a manner priests could only dream of for their temples. To fear the gods is to fear death. In places where men and women are dying, the gods no longer stand in the spaces in between. The soothing intercession is gone. They've stepped back, back through the gates, and watch from the other side. Watch and wait. 'We should've gone around,' List muttered. 'Even without that man in need on your horse,' Duiker said, 'I would have insisted we pass through this place, Corporal.'
'I've learned this lesson already,' List replied, a tautness in his tone.
'From your earlier words, I would suggest that the lesson you have learned is different from mine, lad.'
'This place encourages you, Historian?'
'Strengthens, Corporal, though in a cold way, I admit. Never mind the games of Ascendants. This is what we are. The endless struggle laid bare. Gone is the idyllic, the deceit of self-import as well as the false humility of insignificance. Even as we battle wholly personal battles, we are unified. This is the place of level earth, Corporal. That is its lesson, and I wonder if it is an accident that that deluded mob in gold threads must walk in the wake of these wagons.'
'Either way, few revelations have bled back to stain noble sentiments.'
'No? I smelled desperation back there, Corporal.'
List spied a healer and they delivered the servant into the woman's blood-smeared hands.
The sun was low on the horizon directly ahead by the time they reached the Seventh's main camp. The faint smoke from the dung fires hung like gilded gauze over the ordered rows of tents. Off to one side two squads of infantry had set to in a contest of belt-grip, using a leather-strapped skullcap for a ball. A ring of cheering, jeering onlookers had gathered. Laughter rang in the air.
Duiker remembered the words of an old marine from his soldiering days. Some times you just have to grin and spit in Hood's face. The contesting squads were doing just that, running themselves ragged to sneer at their own exhaustion besides, and well aware that Tithansi eyes watched from a distance.
They were a day away from the River P'atha, and the impending battle was a promise that thickened the dusk.
Two of the Seventh's marines flanked Coltaine's command tent, and the historian recognized one of them.
She nodded. 'Historian.'
There was a look in her pale eyes that seemed to lay an invisible hand against his chest, and Duiker was stilled to silence, though he managed a smile.
As they passed between the drawn flaps, List murmured, 'Well now, Historian.'
'Enough of that, Corporal.' But he did not glance over to nail the young man's grin, as he was tempted to do. A man gets to an age where he's wise not to banter on desire with a comrade half his age. Too pathetic by far, that illusion of competition. Besides, that look of hers was likely more pitying than anything else, no matter what my heart whispered. Put an end to your foolish thoughts, old man.
Coltaine stood near the centre pole, his expression dark. Duiker and List's arrival had interrupted a conversation. Bult and Captain Lull sat on saddle-chairs, looking glum. Sormo stood wrapped in an antelope hide, his back to the tent's far wall, his eyes hooded in shadow. The air was sweltering and tense.
Bult cleared his throat. 'Sormo was explaining about the Semk godling,' he said. 'The spirits say something damaged it. Badly. The night of the raid—a demon walked the land. Lightly, I gather, leaving a spoor not easily sniffed out. In any case, it appeared, mauled the Semk, then left. It seems, Historian, that the Claw had company.'
'An Imperial demon?'
Bult shrugged and swung his flat gaze to Sormo. The warlock, looking like a black vulture perched on a fence pole, stirred slightly. 'There is precedent,' he admitted. 'Yet Nil believes otherwise.'
'Why?' Duiker asked.
There was a long pause before Sormo answered. 'When Nil fled into himself that night… no, that is, he believed that it was his own mind that sheltered him from the Semk's sorcerous attack…' It was clear that the warlock was in difficulty with his words. 'The Tano Spiritwalkers of this land are said to be able to quest through a hidden world—not a true warren, but a realm where souls are freed of flesh and bone. It seems that Nil stumbled into such a place, and there he came face to face with… someone else. At first he thought it but an aspect of himself, a monstrous reflection—'Monstrous?' Duiker asked.
'A boy of Nil's own age, yet with a demonic face. Nil believes it was bonded with the apparition that attacked the Semk. Imperial demons rarely possess human familiars.'
'Then who sent it?'
'Perhaps no-one.'
No wonder Coltaine's had his black feathers ruffled.
After a few minutes Bult sighed loudly, stretching out his gnarled, bandy legs. 'Kamist Reloe has prepared a welcome for us the other side of the River P'atha. We cannot afford to go around him. Therefore we shall go through him.'
'You ride with the marines,' Coltaine told Duiker.
The historian glanced at Captain Lull.
The red-bearded man grinned. 'Seems you've earned a place with the best, old man.'
'Hood's breath! I'll not last five minutes in a line of battle. My heart nearly gave out after a skirmish lasting all of three breaths the other night—'
'We won't be front line,' Lull said. 'There ain't enough of us left for that. If all goes as planned we won't even get our swords nicked.'
'Oh, very well.' Duiker turned to Coltaine. 'Returning the servants to the nobles was a mistake,' he said. 'It seems the nobleborn have concluded that you'll not take them away again if they're not fit to stand.'
Bult said, 'They showed spine, those servants, at Sekala Crossing. Just holding shields, mind, but hold is what they did.'
'Uncle, do you still have that scroll demanding
compensation?' Coltaine asked.
'Aye.'
'And that compensation was calculated based on the worth of each servant, in coin?'
Bult nodded.
'Collect the servants and pay for them in full, in gold jakatas.'
'Aye, though all that gold will burden the nobles sorely.'
'Better them than us.'
Lull cleared his throat. 'That coin's the soldiers' pay, ain't it?'
'The Empire honours its debts,' Coltaine growled.
It was a statement that promised to grow in resonance in the time to come, and the momentary silence in the tent told Duiker that he was not alone in that recognition.
Capemoths swarmed across the face of the moon. Duiker sat beside the flaked embers of a cooking fire. A nervous energy had driven the historian from his bedroll. On all sides the camp slept, a city exhausted. Even the animals had fallen silent.
Rhizan swept through the warm air above the hearth, plucking hovering insects on the wing. The soft crunch of exoskeletons was a constant crackle.
A dark shape appeared at Duiker's side, lowered itself into a squat, held silent.
After a while, Duiker said, 'A Fist needs his rest.' Coltaine grunted. 'And a historian?'
'Never rests.'
'We are denied in our needs,' the Wickan said. 'It was ever thus.'
'Historian, you joke like a Wickan.'
'I've made a study of Bult's lack of humour.'
'That much is patently clear.'
There was silence between them for a time. Duiker could make no claim to know the man at his side. If the Fist was plagued by doubts he did not show it, nor, of course, would he. A commander could not reveal his flaws. With Coltaine, however, it was more than his rank dictating his recalcitrance. Even Bult had occasion to mutter that his nephew was a man who isolated himself to levels far beyond the natural Wickan stoicism.
Coltaine never made speeches to his troops, and while he was often seen by his soldiers, he did not make a point of it as many commanders did. Yet those soldiers belonged to him now, as if the Fist could fill every silent space with a physical assurance as solid as a gripping of forearms.
What happens the day that faith is shattered? What if we are but hours from that day?
'The enemy hunts our scouts,' Coltaine said. 'We cannot see what has been prepared for us in the valley ahead.'
'Sormo's allies?'
'The spirits are preoccupied.'
Ah, the Semk godling.
'Can'eld, Debrahl, Tithan, Semk, Tepasi, Halafan, Ubari, Hissari, Sialk and Guran.'
Four tribes now. Six city legions. Am I hearing doubt?
The Fist spat into the embers. 'The army that awaits us is one of two holding the south.'
How in Hood's name does he know this? 'Has Sha'ik marched out of Raraku, then?'
'She has not. A mistake.'
'What holds her back? Has the rebellion been crushed in the north?'
'Crushed? No, it commands all. As for Sha'ik…' Coltaine paused to adjust his crow-feather cape. 'Perhaps her visions have taken her into the future. Perhaps she knows the Whirlwind shall fail, that even now the Adjunct to the Empress assembles her legions—Unta's harbour is solid with transports. The Whirlwind's successes will prove but momentary, a first blood-rush that succeeded only because of Imperial weakness. Sha'ik knows… the dragon has been stirred awake, and moves ponderously still, yet when the full fury comes, it shall scour this land from shore to shore.'
'This other army, here in the south… how far away?' Coltaine straightened. 'I intend to arrive at Vathar two days before it.'
Word must have reached him that Ubaryd has fallen, along with Devral and Asmar. Vathar—the third and last river. If we make Vathar, it's a straight run south to Aren—through the most forbidding wasteland on thisHood-cursed continent. 'Fist, the River Vathar is still months away. What of tomorrow?'
Coltaine pulled his gaze from the embers and blinked at the historian. 'Tomorrow we crush Kamist Reloe's army, of course. One must think far ahead to succeed, Historian. You should understand that.'
The Fist strolled away.
Duiker stared at the dying fire, a sour taste in his mouth. That taste is fear, old man. You've not got Coltaine's impenetrable armour. You cannot see past a few hours from now, and you await the dawn in the belief that it shall be your last, and therefore you must witness it. Coltaine expects the impossible, he expects us to share in his implacable confidence. To share in his madness.
Arhizan landed on his boot, delicate wings folding as it settled. A young capemoth was in the winged lizard's mouth, its struggles continuing even as the rhizan methodically devoured it.
Duiker waited until the creature had finished its meal before a twitch of his foot sent it winging away. The historian straightened. The sounds of activity had risen in the Wickan encampments. He made his way towards the nearest one.
The horsewarriors of the Foolish Dog Clan had gathered to ready their equipment beneath the glare of torch poles. Duiker strode closer. Ornate boiled leather armour had appeared, dyed in deep and muddy shades of red and green. The thick, padded gear was in a style the historian had never seen before. Wickan runes had been burned into it. The armour looked ancient, yet never used.
Duiker approached the nearest warrior, a peach-faced youth busy rubbing grease into a horse's brow-guard. 'Heavy armour for a Wickan,' the historian said. 'And for a Wickan horse as well.'
The young man nodded soberly, said nothing.
'You're turning yourselves into heavy cavalry."
The lad shrugged.
An older warrior nearby spoke up. 'The warleader devised these during the rebellion… then agreed peace with the Emperor before they could be used.'
'And you have been carrying them around with you all this time?'
'Aye.'
'Why didn't you use this armour at Sekala Crossing?'
'Didn't need to.'
'And now?'
Grinning, the veteran raised an iron helm with new bridge and cheek-guards attached. 'Reloe's horde hasn't faced heavy cavalry yet, has it?'
Thick armour doesn't make heavy cavalry. Have you fools ever trained for this? Can you gallop in an even line? Can you wheel? How soon before your horses are winded beneath all that extra weight? 'You'll look intimidating enough,' the historian said. The Wickan caught the scepticism and his grin broadened. The youth set down the brow-guard and began strapping on a sword belt. He slid the blade from the scabbard, revealing four feet of blackened iron, its tip rounded and blunt. The weapon looked heavy, oversized in the lad's hands. Hood's breath, one swing'll yank him from his saddle. The veteran grunted. 'Limber up there, Temul,' he said in Malazan.
Temul immediately launched into a complex choreography, the blade blurring in his hand.
'Do you intend to dismount once you reach the enemy?'
'Sleep would have done much for your mind's cast, old man.'
Point taken, bastard.
Duiker wandered away. He'd always hated the hours before a battle. None of the rituals of preparation had ever worked for him. A check of weapons and gear rarely took an experienced soldier more than twenty heartbeats. The historian had never been able to repeat that check mindlessly, again and again, as did so many soldiers. Keeping the hands busy while the mind slowly slid into a sharp-edged world of saturated colours, painful clarity and a kind of lustful hunger that seized body and soul.
Some warriors ready themselves to live, some ready themselves to die, and in these hours before the fate unfolds, it's damned hard to tell one from the other. The lad Temul's dance a moment ago might be his last. That damned sword may never again leap from its sheath and sing on the end of his hand.
The sky was lightening in the east, the cool wind beginning to warm. The vast dome overhead was cloudless. A formation of birds flew high to the north, the pattern of specks almost motionless.
The Wickan camp behind him, Duiker entered the regimental rows of tents that marked the Seventh. T
he various elements maintained their cohesion in the encampment's layout, and each was clearly identifiable to the historian. The medium infantry, who formed the bulk of the army, were arranged by company, each company consisting of cohorts that were in turn made up of squads. They would go into battle with full-body shields of bronze, pikes and short swords. They wore bronze scale hauberks, greaves and gauntlets, and bronze helmets reinforced with iron bars wrapped in a cage around the skullcap. Chain camails protected their necks and shoulders. The other footmen consisted of marines and sappers, the former a combination of heavy infantry and shock troops—the old Emperor's invention and still unique to the Empire. They were armed with crossbows and short swords as well as long swords. They wore blackened chain beneath grey leathers. Every third soldier carried a large, round shield of thick, soft wood that would be soaked for an hour before battle. These shields were used to catch and hold enemy weapons ranging from swords to flails. They would be discarded after the first few minutes of a fight, usually studded with an appalling array of edged and spiked iron. This peculiar tactic of the Seventh had proved effective against the Semk and their undisciplined, two-handed fighting methods. The marines called it pulling teeth.
The sappers' encampment was set somewhat apart from the others—as far away as possible when they carried Moranth munitions. Though he looked, Duiker could not see its location, but he knew well what he'd find. Look for the most disordered collection of tents and foul-smelling vapours aswarm with mosquitoes and gnats and you'll have found Malazan Engineers. And in that quarter you'll find soldiers shaking like leaves, with splash-burn pockmarks, singed hair and a dark, manic gleam in their eyes.
Corporal List stood with Captain Lull at one end of the Marine encampment, close to the attachment of loyal Hissari Guards—whose soldiers were readying their tulwars and round shields in grim silence. Coltaine held them in absolute trust, and the Seven Cities natives had proved themselves again and again with fanatic ferocity—as if they had assumed a burden of shame and guilt and could only relieve it by slaughtering every one of their traitorous kin.
Captain Lull smiled as the historian joined them. 'Got a cloth for your face? We'll be eating dust today, old man, in plenty.'