The Malazan Empire, page 112
Apt answered.
Shadowthrone seemed to flinch, then he laughed again, harsh and cold this time. “ ‘The eyes are love’s prism,’ are they now? Will you go hand in hand to the fishmonger’s on Market Day, my dear?”
The boy’s head jerked back, bones altering shape, the twin gaping orbits merging to form a single larger one above a nose bridge that branched to either side, then ran up the outer edge of the socket in a thin, raised ridge. An eye to match the demon’s blurred into existence.
Shadowthrone stepped back to examine his handiwork. “Aai,” he whispered. “Who then is it who now looks upon me through such a prism? Abyss Below, answer not!” The god spun abruptly to stare at the portalway. “Cunning Quick Ben—I know his handiwork. He could have gone far under my patronage…”
The Malazan boy clambered to sit behind Apt’s narrow, jutting shoulder blade. His frail body shook with the trauma of forced healing, and an eternity nailed to a cross, but his ghastly face showed a slightly ironic smile in a line that perfectly matched the demon’s.
Apt approached the portalway.
Shadowthrone gestured. “Go on then, trail the ones trailing the Bridgeburner. Whiskeyjack’s soldiers were ever loyal, I seem to recall. Kalam does not intend to kiss Laseen’s cheeks when he finds her, of that I’m certain.”
Apt hesitated, then spoke one last time.
A grimace entered the god’s tone as he replied. “That High Priest of mine alarms even me. If he cannot deceive the hunters on the Path of Hands, my precious realm—which has seen more than its share of intruders of late—will become very crowded indeed…” Shadowthrone wagged his head. “It was a simple task, after all.” He began to drift away, his Hounds following suit. “Can anyone find reliable, competent help these days, I wonder…”
A moment later Apt was alone, the shadows slipping away.
The portalway had begun to weaken, slowly closing the wound between the realms. The demon rasped words of comfort. The boy nodded.
They slid into the Imperial Warren.
Chapter Twelve
Ages unveiled the Holy Desert.
Raraku was once an ochre sea.
She stood in the wind
on the pride of a spire
and saw ancient fleets—
ships of bone, sails of bleached
hair, charging the crest
to where the waters slipped
beneath the sands
of the desert to come.
THE HOLY DESERT
ANONYMOUS
A line of feral white goats stood on the crest of the tel known as Samon, silhouetted against a startlingly blue sky. Like bestial gods carved from marble, they watched as the vast train wound through the valley swathed in a massive cloud of dust. That they numbered seven was an omen not lost on Duiker as he rode with the south flanking patrol of Foolish Dog Wickans.
Nine hundred paces behind the historian marched five companies of the Seventh, slightly under a thousand soldiers, while the same distance behind them rode another patrol of two hundred and fifty Wickans. The three units comprised the south-facing guard for the now close to fifty thousand refugees, as well as livestock, that made up the main column, and were mirrored with similar forces on the north side. An inner ring of loyal Hissari Infantry and Marines were spread out along the column’s edges—walking alongside the hapless civilians.
A rearguard of a thousand Wickans from each of the clans rode in the train’s dust over two-thirds of a league east of Duiker’s position. Though split and riding in troops of a dozen or less, their task was impossible. Tithansi raiders nipped at the battered tail of the refugee column, snaring the Wickans in an eternal running skirmish. The back end of Coltaine’s train was a bleeding wound never allowed to heal.
The vanguard to the refugees consisted of the surviving elements of the Seventh’s attachment of medium-equipped cavalry—slightly more than two hundred riders in all. Before them rode the Malazan nobles in their carriages and wagons, flanked on either side by ten companies of the 7th Infantry. Close to a thousand additional soldiers of the Seventh—the walking wounded—provided the nobles with their own vanguard, while ahead of them rolled the wagons bearing the cutters and their more seriously injured charges. Coltaine and a thousand riders of his Crow Clan spearheaded the entire column.
But there were too many refugees and too few able combatants, and for all the Malazan efforts, Kamist Reloe’s raiding parties struck like vipers in brilliantly coordinated mayhem. A new commander had come to Reloe’s army of the Apocalypse, a nameless Tithansi warleader charged with harrying the train day and night as it crawled painfully westward—a bloodied and battered serpent that refused to die—and this warrior now posed the most serious threat to Coltaine.
A slow, calculated slaughter. We’re being toyed with. The endless dust had scratched the historian’s throat raw, making every swallow agony. They were running perilously low on water, the memories of Sekala River now a parched yearning. The nightly slaughter of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats had intensified, as animals were released from suffering, then butchered to flavor the vast cauldrons of blood-stew, marrow and oats that had become everyone’s main sustenance. Each night the encampment became an abattoir of screaming beasts, the air alive with rhizan and capemoths drawn to the killing stations. The cacophonous uproar and chaos each dusk had scraped Duiker’s nerves raw—and he was not alone in that. Madness haunted their days, stalking them as relentlessly as Kamist Reloe and his vast army.
Corporal List rode alongside the historian in numbed silence, his head dropped low on his chest, his shoulders slumped. He seemed to be aging before Duiker’s eyes.
Their world had dwindled. We totter on edges seen and unseen. We are reduced, yet defiant. We’ve lost the meaning of time. Endless motion broken only by its dulled absence—the shock of rest, of those horns sounding an end to the day’s plodding. For that moment, as the dust swirls on, no one moves. Standing in disbelief that another day has passed, and yet still we live.
He’d walked the refugee camp at night, wandering between the ragged rows of tents, lean-tos and canopied wagons, his eyes taking in all that he saw with perverse detachment. The historian, now witness, stumbling in the illusion that he will survive. Long enough to set the details down on parchment in the frail belief that truth is a worthwhile cause. That the tale will become a lesson heeded. Frail belief? Outright lie, a delusion of the worst sort. The lesson of history is that no one learns.
Children were dying. He’d crouched, one hand on a mother’s shoulder, and watched with her as life ebbed from the baby in her arms. Like the light of an oil lamp, dimming, dimming, winking out. The moment when the struggle’s already lost, surrendered, and the tiny heart slows in its own realization, then stops in mute wonder. And never stirs again. It was then that pain filled the vast caverns within the living, destroying all it touched with its rage at inequity.
No match for the mother’s tears, he’d moved on. Wandering, smeared in dirt, sweat and blood, he was becoming a spectral presence, a self-proclaimed pariah. He’d stopped attending Coltaine’s nightly sessions, despite direct orders to the contrary. Accompanied only by List, he rode with the Wickans, to the flanks and to the rear, he marched with the Seventh, with the Hissari Loyals, the Marines, the sappers, the nobles and the mud-bloods—as the lowborn refugees had taken to calling themselves.
Through it all he said little, his presence becoming commonplace enough to permit a relaxation among the people around him. No matter what the depredations, there always seemed energy enough to expend in opinions.
Coltaine’s a demon in truth, Laseen’s dark joke on us all. He’s in league with Kamist Reloe and Sha’ik—this uprising is naught but an elaborate charade since Hood’s come to embrace the realm of humans. We’ve bowed to our skull-faced patron, and in return for all this spilled blood Coltaine, Sha’ik and Laseen will all ascend to stand alongside the Shrouded One.
Hood reveals himself in the flight of these capemoths—he shows his face again and again, greeting each dusk with a hungry grin in the dimming sky.
The Wickans have made a pact with the earth spirits. We’re here to make fertile soil—
You’ve taken the wrong path with that, friend. We’re sport for the Whirlwind goddess, nothing more. We are a lesson drawn long in the telling.
The Council of Nobles are eating children.
Where did you hear that?
Someone stumbled onto a grisly feast last night. The Council’s petitioned dark Elder gods in order to stay fat—
To what?
Fat, I said. Truth. And now bestial spirits wander the camp at night, collecting children dead or near enough to dead to make no difference, except those ones are juicier.
You’ve gone mad—
He may have something there, friend! I myself saw picked and gnawed bones this morning, all in a heap—no skulls but the bones looked human enough, only very small. Wouldn’t you do for a roasted baby right now, eh? Instead of the half-cup of brown sludge we’re getting these days?
I heard Aren’s army is only days away, led by Pormqual himself. He’s got a legion of demons with him, too—
Sha’ik’s dead—you heard the Semk wailing into the night, didn’t you? And now they wear greased ash like a second skin. Someone in the Seventh told me he came face to face with one at last night’s ambush—the scrap at the dried-up waterhole. Said the Semk’s eyes were black pits, dull as dusty stones, they were. Even when the soldier spitted the bastard on his sword, nothing showed in those eyes. I tell you, Sha’ik’s dead.
Ubaryd’s been liberated. We’re going to swing south any day now—you’ll see—it’s the only thing that makes sense. There’s nothing west of here. Nothing at all—
Nothing at all…
“Historian!”
That harsh Falari-accented shout came from the dust-covered rider angling his mount alongside Duiker. Captain Lull, Cartheron Wing, his long, red hair hanging in greasy strands from under his helmet. The historian blinked at him.
The grizzled soldier grinned. “Word is, you’ve lost your way, old man.”
Duiker shook his head. “I follow the train,” he said woodenly, wiping at the grit that stung his eyes.
“We’ve got a Tithansi warleader out there needs to be found, hunted down,” Lull said, eyes narrow on the historian. “Sormo and Bult have volunteered some names for the task.”
“I shall dutifully record them in my List of the Fallen.”
The breath hissed between the captain’s teeth. “Abyss Below, old man, they ain’t dead yet—we ain’t dead yet, dammit! Anyway, I’m here to inform you that you’ve volunteered. We head out tonight, tenth bell. Gathering at Nil’s hearth by the ninth.”
“I decline the offer,” Duiker said.
Lull’s grin returned. “Request denied, and I’m to stay at your side so you don’t slip away as you’re wont to do.”
“Hood take you, bastard!”
“Aye, soon enough.”
Nine days to the River P’atha. We stretch to meet each minor goal, there’s a genius in this. Coltaine offers the marginally possible to fool us into achieving the impossible. All the way to Aren. But for all his ambition, we shall fail. Fail in the flesh and the bone. “We kill the warleader, another will step into his place,” Duiker said after a time.
“Probably not as talented nor as brave as the task demands. A part of him will know: if his efforts are mediocre, we’re likely to let him live. If he shows us brilliance, we’ll kill him.”
Ah, that rings of Coltaine. His well-aimed arrows of fear and uncertainty. He’s yet to miss the mark. So long as he does not fail, he cannot fail. The day he slips up, shows imperfection, is the day our heads will roll. Nine days to fresh water. Kill the Tithansi warleader and we’ll get there. Make them reel with every victory, let them draw breath with every loss—Coltaine trains them as he would beasts, and they don’t even realize it.
Captain Lull leaned over the saddlehorn. “Corporal List, you awake?”
The young man’s head swung up and turned from side to side.
“Damn you, Historian,” Lull growled. “The lad’s fevered from lack of water.”
Looking at the corporal, Duiker saw the high color beneath the dust streaks on List’s drawn cheeks, his all too bright eyes. “He wasn’t like that this morning—”
“Eleven hours ago!”
Eleven?
The captain twisted his horse away, his shouts for a healer breaking through the incessant rumble of hooves, wagon wheels and countless footfalls which made up the train’s unceasing roar.
Eleven?
Animals shifted position in the clouds of dust. Lull returned, alongside him Nether, the girl looking tiny atop the huge, muscular roan she rode. The captain collected the reins of List’s horse and passed them over to Nether. Duiker watched the Wickan child lead the corporal away.
“I’m tempted to have her attend to you afterward,” Lull said. “Hood’s breath, man—when did you last take a sip of water?”
“What water?”
“We’ve casks left for the soldiers. You take a skin every morning, Historian, up where the wagons carrying the wounded are positioned. Each dusk you bring the skin back.”
“There’s water in the stew, isn’t there?”
“Milk and blood.”
“If there are casks left for the soldiers, what of everyone else?”
“Whatever they managed to carry with them from the Sekala River,” Lull said. “We’ll protect them, aye, but we’ll not mother them. Water’s become the currency, I hear, and the trading’s fierce.”
“Children are dying.”
Lull nodded. “That’s a succinct summary of humankind, I’d say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words. Quote me, Duiker, and your work’s done.”
The bastard’s right. Economics, ethics, the games of the gods—all within that single, tragic statement. I’ll quote you, soldier. Be assured of that. An old sword, pitted and blunt and nicked, that cuts clean to the heart. “You humble me, Captain.”
Lull grunted, passing over a waterskin. “A couple of mouthfuls. Don’t push it or you’ll choke.”
Duiker’s smile was wry.
“I trust,” the captain continued, “you’ve kept up on that List of the Fallen you mentioned.”
“No, I’ve…stumbled of late, I’m afraid.”
Lull jerked a tight nod.
“How do we fare, Captain?”
“We’re getting mauled. Badly. Close to twenty killed a day, twice that wounded. Vipers in the dust—they suddenly appear, arrows fly, a soldier dies. We send out a troop of Wickans in pursuit, they ride into an ambush. We send out another, we got a major tangle on our hands, leaving flanks open to either side. Refugees get cut down, drovers get skewered and we lose a few more animals—unless those Wickan dogs are around, that is, those are nasty beasts. Mind you, their numbers are dropping as well.”
“In other words, this can’t go on much longer.”
Lull bared his teeth, a white gleam amidst his gray-shot red beard. “That’s why we’re going for the warleader’s head. When we reach the River P’atha, there’ll be another full-scale battle. He ain’t invited.”
“Another disputed crossing?”
“No, the river’s ankle-deep and getting shallower as the season drags on. More likely on the other side—the trail winds through some rough country—we’ll find trouble there. In any case, we either carve ourselves some breathing space then, or we’re purple meat under the sun and it don’t matter.”
The Wickan horns sounded.
“Ah,” Lull said, “we’re done. Get some rest, old man—we’ll find us a spot in the Foolish Dog camp. I’ll wake you with a meal in a few hours.”
“Lead on, Captain.”
Scrapping over something unrecognizable in the tall grasses, the pack of Wickan cattle-dogs paused to watch Duiker and Lull stride past at a distance of twenty or so paces. The historian frowned at the wiry, mottled beasts.
“Best not look them in the eye,” Lull said. “You ain’t Wickan and they know it.”
“I was just wondering what they’re eating.”
“Not something you want to find out.”
“There’s been a rumor about dug-up child graves…”
“Like I said, you don’t want to know, Historian.”
“Well, some of the tougher mud-bloods have been hiring themselves out to stand guard over those graves—”
“If they ain’t got Wickan blood in that mud they’ll regret it.”
The dogs resumed their snapping and bickering once the two men had moved past.
Hearthfires flickered in the camp ahead. A last line of defenders patrolled the perimeter of the round hide tents, old folk and youths, who revealed a silent, vaguely ominous watchfulness that matched that of the cattle-dogs as the two men strode into the Wickan enclave.
“I get a sense,” Duiker muttered, “that the cause of protecting the refugees is cooling among these people…”
The captain grimaced but said nothing.
They continued on, winding between the tent rows. Smoke hung heavy in the air, as did the smell of horse urine and boiled bones, the latter acrid yet strangely sweet. Duiker paused as they passed close to an old woman tending one such iron pot of bones. Whatever boiled in the pot wasn’t entirely water. The woman was using a flat blade of wood to collect the thick bone fat and marrow that congealed on the surface, scraping it into an intestine to be later twisted and tied off into sausages.
The old woman noticed the historian and held up the wooden blade—as she would if offering it to a toddler to lick clean. Flecks of sage were visible in the fat—a herb Duiker had once loved but had come to despise, since it was one of the few native to the Odhan. He smiled and shook his head.
