The Malazan Empire, page 331
She frowned beneath her helm. ‘Amends? By Temul’s account you fought bravely, and well. Without your intercession, the Chain of Dogs would have fallen at Sanimon. The refugees would have been slaughtered—’
‘Yet we then rode away—back to our lands, Adjunct. We thought only to lick our wounds. While the Chain marched on. To more battles. To its final battle.’ He was weeping in truth now, and an eerie keening sound rose from the other horse warriors present. ‘We should have been there. That is all.’
The Adjunct said nothing for a long moment.
Strings removed his helm and wiped the sweat from his brow. He glanced back up the slope, and saw a solid line of Khundryl on the ridge. Silent. Waiting.
Tavore cleared her throat. ‘Gall, Warchief of the Burned Tears…the Fourteenth Army welcomes you.’
The answering roar shook the ground underfoot. Strings turned and met Cuttle’s eyes. Three thousand veterans of this Hood-damned desert. Queen of Dreams, we have a chance. Finally, it looks like we have a chance. He did not need to speak aloud to know that Cuttle understood, for the man slowly nodded.
But Gall was not finished. Whether he realized the full measure of his next gesture—no, Strings would conclude eventually, he could not have—even so…The Warchief gathered his reins and rode forward, past the Adjunct. He halted his horse before Temul, then dismounted.
Three strides forward. Under the eyes of over three hundred Wickans, and five hundred Seti, the burly Khundryl—his grey eyes fixed on Temul—halted. Then he unslung his broken tulwar and held it out to the Wickan youth.
Temul was pale as he reached down to accept it.
Gall stepped back and slowly lowered himself to one knee. ‘We are not Wickans,’ the warchief grated, ‘but this I swear—we shall strive to be.’ He lowered his head.
Temul sat unmoving, visibly struggling beneath a siege of emotions, and Strings suddenly realized that the lad did not know how to answer, did not know what to do.
The sergeant took a step, then swung his helm upward, as if to put it back on. Temul caught the flash of movement, even as he looked about to dismount, and he froze as he met Strings’s eyes.
A slight shake of the head. Stay in that saddle, Temul! The sergeant reached up and touched his own mouth. Talk. Answer with words, lad!
The commander slowly settled back into his saddle, then straightened. ‘Gall of the Burned Tears,’ he said, barely a tremble to his voice, ‘Blackwing sees through the eyes of every Wickan here. Sees, and answers. Rise. In Blackwing’s name, I, Temul of the Crow Clan, accept you…the Burned Tears…of the Crow Clan, of the Wickans.’ He then took the loop of leather to which the broken tulwar was tied, and lowered it over his shoulder.
With the sound of a wave rolling up a league-long strand of beach, weapons were unsheathed along the ridge, a salute voiced by iron alone.
A shiver rippled through Strings.
‘Hood’s breath,’ Cuttle muttered under his breath. ‘That is a lot more frightening than their warcries were.’
Aye, as ominous as Hood’s smile. He looked back to Temul and saw the Wickan watching him. The sergeant lowered the helm onto his head once more, then grinned and nodded. Perfect, lad. Couldn’t have done better myself.
And now, Temul wasn’t alone any more, surrounded by sniping arthritic wolves who still wouldn’t accept his command. Now, the lad had Gall and three thousand blooded warriors to back his word. And that’s the last of that. Gall, if I was a religious man, I’d burn a crow-wing in your name tonight. Hood take me, I might do it anyway.
‘Gall of the Burned Tears,’ the Adjunct announced. ‘Please join us at our command quarters. We can discuss the disposition of your forces over a meal—a modest meal, alas—’
The Khundryl finally straightened. He faced the Adjunct. ‘Modest? No. We have brought our own food, and this night there shall be a feast—not a single soldier shall go without at least a mouthful of bhederin or boar!’ He swung about and scanned his retinue until he spied the one he sought. ‘Imrahl! Drag your carcass back to the wagons and bring them forward! And find the two hundred cooks and see if they’ve sobered up yet! And if they haven’t, I will have their heads!’
The warrior named Imrahl, an ancient, scrawny figure who seemed to be swimming beneath archaic bronze armour, answered with a broad, ghastly smile, then spun his horse round and kicked it into a canter back up the slope.
Gall swung about and raised both hands skyward, the crow-wings attached to the forearms seeming to snap open beneath them. ‘Let the Dogslayers cower!’ he roared. ‘The Burned Tears have begun the hunt!’
Cuttle leaned close to Strings. ‘That’s one problem solved—the Wickan lad’s finally on solid ground. One wound sewn shut, only to see another pried open.’
‘Another?’ Oh. Yes, true enough. That Wickan Fist’s ghost keeps rearing up, again and again. Poor lass.
‘As if Coltaine’s legacy wasn’t already dogging her heels…if you’ll excuse the pun,’ the sapper went on. ‘Still, she’s putting a brave face on it…’
No choice. Strings faced his squad. ‘Collect your gear, soldiers. We’ve got pickets to raise…before we eat.’ At their groans he scowled. ‘And consider yourselves lucky—missing those scouts don’t bode well for our capabilities, now, does it?’
He watched them assemble their gear. Gesler and Borduke were approaching with their own squads. Cuttle grunted at the sergeant’s side. ‘In case it’s slipped your mind, Fid,’ he said, low, ‘we didn’t see the bastards, either.’
‘You’re right,’ Strings replied, ‘it’s slipped my mind completely. Huh, there it goes again. Gone.’
Cuttle scratched the bristle on his heavy jaw. ‘Strange, what were we talking about?’
‘Bhederin and boar, I think. Fresh meat.’
‘Right. My mouth’s watering at the thought.’
Gamet paused outside the command tent. The revelry continued unabated, as the Khundryl roved through the camp, roaring their barbaric songs. Jugs of fermented milk had been broached and the Fist was grimly certain that more than one bellyful of half-charred, half-raw meat had returned to the earth prematurely out beyond the fires, or would in the short time that remained before dawn.
Next day’s march had been halved, by the Adjunct’s command, although even five bells’ walking was likely to make most of the soldiers regret this night’s excesses.
Or maybe not.
He watched a marine from his own legion stumble past, a Khundryl woman riding him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck. She was naked, the marine nearly so. Weaving, the pair vanished into the gloom.
Gamet sighed, drawing his cloak tighter about himself, then turned and approached the two Wickans standing guard outside the Adjunct’s tent.
They were from the Crow, grey-haired and looking miserable. Recognizing the Fist they stepped to either side of the entrance. He passed between them, ducking to slip between the flaps.
All of the other officers had left, leaving only the Adjunct and Gall, the latter sprawled on a massive, ancient-looking wooden chair that had come on the Khundryl wagons. The warchief had removed his helm, revealing a mass of curly hair, long and black and shimmering with grease. The midnight hue was dye, Gamet suspected, for the man had seen at least fifty summers. The tips of his moustache rested on his chest and he looked half asleep, a jug gripped by the clay handle in one huge hand. The Adjunct stood nearby, eyes lowered onto a brazier, as if lost in thought.
Were I an artist, I would paint this scene. This precise moment, and leave the viewer to wonder. He strode over to the map table, where another jug of wine waited. ‘Our army is drunk, Adjunct,’ he murmured as he poured a cup full.
‘Like us,’ Gall rumbled. ‘Your army is lost.’
Gamet glanced over at Tavore, but there was no reaction for him to gauge. He drew a breath, then faced the Khundryl. ‘We are yet to fight a major battle, Warchief. Thus, we do not yet know ourselves. That is all. We are not lost—’
‘Just not yet found,’ Gall finished, baring his teeth. He took a long swallow from his jug.
‘Do you regret your decision to join us, then?’ Gamet asked.
‘Not at all, Fist. My shamans have read the sands. They have learned much of your future. The Fourteenth Army shall know a long life, but it shall be a restless life. You are doomed to search, destined to ever hunt…for what even you do not know, nor, perhaps, shall you ever know. Like the sands themselves, wandering for eternity.’
Gamet was scowling. ‘I do not wish to offend, Warchief, but I hold little faith in divination. No mortal—no god—can say we are doomed, or destined. The future remains unknown, the one thing we cannot force a pattern upon.’
The Khundryl grunted. ‘Patterns, the lifeblood of the shamans. But not them alone, yes? The Deck of Dragons—are they not used for divination?’
Gamet shrugged. ‘There are some who hold much store in the Deck, but I am not one of them.’
‘Do you not see patterns in history, Fist? Are you blind to the cycles we all suffer through? Look upon this desert, this wasteland you cross. Yours is not the first empire that would claim it. And what of the tribes? Before the Khundryl, before the Kherahn Dhobri and the Tregyn, there were the Sanid, and the Oruth, and before them there were others whose names have vanished. Look upon the ruined cities, the old roads. The past is all patterns, and those patterns remain beneath our feet, even as the stars above reveal their own patterns—for the stars we gaze upon each night are naught but an illusion from the past.’ He raised the jug again and studied it for a moment. ‘Thus, the past lies beneath and above the present, Fist. This is the truth my shamans embrace, the bones upon which the future clings like muscle.’
The Adjunct slowly turned to study the warchief. ‘We shall reach Vathar Crossing tomorrow, Gall. What will we find?’
The Khundryl’s eyes glittered. ‘That is for you to decide, Tavore Paran. It is a place of death, and it shall speak its words to you—words the rest of us will not hear.’
‘Have you been there?’ she asked.
He nodded, but added nothing more.
Gamet drank down a mouthful of wine. There was a strangeness to this night, to this moment here in the Adjunct’s tent, that left his skin crawling. He felt out of place, like a simpleton who’d just stumbled into the company of scholars. The revelry in the camp beyond was dying down, and come the dawn, he knew, there would be silence. Drunken oblivion was, each time, a small, temporary death. Hood walked where the self once stood, and the wake of the god’s passage sickened mortal flesh afterwards.
He set his cup down on the map table. ‘If you’ll forgive me,’ he muttered, ‘the air in here is too…close.’
Neither replied as he walked back to the flap.
Outside, in the street beyond the two motionless Wickan guards, Gamet paused and looked up. Ancient light, is it? If so, then the patterns I see…may have died long ago. No, that does not bear thinking about. It is one of those truths that have no value, for it offers nothing but dislocation.
And he needed no fuel for that cold fire. He was too old for this war. Hood knows, I didn’t enjoy it much the first time round. Vengeance belonged to the young, after all. The time when emotions burned hottest, when life was sharp enough to cut, fierce enough to sear the soul.
He was startled by the passing of a large cattle dog. Head low, muscles rippling beneath a mottled hide literally seamed with countless scars, the silent beast padded down the aisle between the tent rows. A moment later and it disappeared into the gloom.
‘I’ve taken to following it,’ a voice said behind him.
Gamet turned. ‘Captain Keneb. I am surprised to find you still awake.’
The soldier shrugged. ‘That boar’s not sitting too well in my gut, sir.’
‘More likely that fermented milk the Khundryl brought—what is it called again?’
‘Urtathan. But no, I have experienced that brew before, and so chose to avoid it. Come the morning, I suspect three-quarters of the army will realize a similar wisdom.’
‘And the remaining quarter?’
‘Dead.’ He smiled at Gamet’s expression. ‘Sorry, sir, I wasn’t entirely serious.’
The Fist gestured for the captain to accompany him, and they began walking. ‘Why do you follow that dog, Keneb?’
‘Because I know its tale, sir. It survived the Chain of Dogs. From Hissar to the Fall outside Aren. I watched it fall almost at Coltaine’s feet. Impaled by spears. It should not have survived that.’
‘Then how did it?’
‘Gesler.’
Gamet frowned. ‘The sergeant in our legion’s marines?’
‘Aye, sir. He found it, as well as another dog. What happened then I have no idea. But both beasts recovered from what should have been mortal wounds.’
‘Perhaps a healer…’
Keneb nodded. ‘Perhaps, but none among Blistig’s guard—I made enquiries. No, there’s a mystery yet to be solved. Not just the dogs, but Gesler himself, and his corporal, Stormy, and a third soldier—have you not noted their strangely hued skin? They’re Falari, yet Falari are pale-skinned, and a desert tan doesn’t look like that at all. Curious, too, it was Gesler who delivered the Silanda.’
‘Do you believe they have made a pact with a god, Captain? Such cults are forbidden in the imperial army.’
‘I cannot answer that, sir. Nor have I evidence sufficient to make such a charge against them. Thus far, I have kept Gesler’s squad, and a few others, as the column’s rearguard.’
The Fist grunted. ‘This news is disturbing, Captain. You do not trust your own soldiers. And this is the first time you’ve told me of any of this. Have you considered confronting the sergeant directly?’
They had reached the edge of the camp. Before them stretched a broken line of hills; to their right, the dark forest of Vathar.
To Gamet’s questions, Keneb sighed and nodded. ‘They in turn do not trust me, Fist. There is a rumour in my company…that I abandoned my last soldiers, at the time of the uprising.’
And did you, Keneb? Gamet said nothing.
But it seemed that the captain heard the silent question none the less. ‘I didn’t, although I will not deny that some of the decisions I made back then could give cause to question my loyalty to the empire.’
‘You had better explain that,’ Gamet said quietly.
‘I had family with me. I sought to save them, and for a time nothing else mattered. Sir, whole companies went over to the rebels. You did not know who to trust. And as it turned out, my commander—’
‘Say no more of that, Captain. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to know. Your family? Did you manage to save them?’
‘Aye, sir. With some timely help from an outlawed Bridgeburner—’
‘A what? Who, in Hood’s name?’
‘Corporal Kalam, sir.’
‘He’s here? In Seven Cities?’
‘He was. On his way, I think, to the Empress. From what I gathered, he had some issues he wanted to, uh, raise with her. In person.’
‘Who else knows all this?’
‘No-one, sir. I’ve heard the tale, that the Bridgeburners were wiped out. But I can tell you, Kalam was not among them. He was here, sir. And as to where he is now, perhaps the Empress alone knows.’
There was a smudge of motion in the grasses, about twenty paces distant. That dog. Hood knows what it’s up to. ‘All right, Captain. Keep Gesler in the rearguard for now. But at some point, before the battle, we’ll have to test him—I need to know if he’s reliable.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Your beast is wandering out there.’
‘I know. Every night. As if looking for something. I think it might be…Coltaine. Looking for Coltaine. And it breaks my heart, sir.’
‘Well, if it’s true, Captain, that the dog’s looking for Coltaine, I admit to being surprised.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Because the bastard’s here. You’d have to be blind, dumb and deaf to miss him, Captain. Goodnight to you.’ He turned and strode off, feeling the need to spit, but he knew the bitter taste in his mouth would not so easily leave him.
The fire was long dead. Wrapped in his cloak, Strings sat before it, looking at but not seeing the layered bricks of ash that were all that remained of the pieces of dung. Beside him lay the scrawny Hengese lapdog that Truth said was named Roach. The bone the creature gnawed on was bigger than it, and had that bone teeth and appetite it would be the one doing the eating right now.
Contented company, then, to mock this miserable night. The blanketed forms of his squad lay motionless on all sides. They’d been too exhausted to get drunk, after raising the pickets then sitting first watch, and full bellies had quickly dragged them into sleep. Well enough, he mused, they’d be among the few spared the ravages of hangover in a few bells’ time. Even Cuttle had yet to awaken, as was his custom—or perhaps his eyes were open where he lay with his back to the hearth.
It did not matter. The loneliness Strings suffered could not be alleviated by company, not such as he might find here, in any case. Nor were his thoughts the kind he would willingly share.
They’d been spitting dust almost since the march began. Not the place for marines, unless a massive pursuit threatened the rear of the column, which was not the case. No, Keneb was punishing them, and Strings had no idea why. Even the lieutenant, who had somehow managed to avoid actually being present to command the squads, was uncertain as to the captain’s motivations. Though not displeased, of course. Then again, how can Ranal hope to acquire his stellar reputation with his soldiers coughing the entire Fourteenth’s dust?
And do I even give a damn, any more?
The night air stank of bile, as if Poliel herself stalked the camp. The sudden acquisition of three thousand veterans had done much to lift the Fourteenth’s spirits—Strings hoped there was no omen in the aftermath.
All right then, let’s consider the matter at hand. This army has its chance, now. It doesn’t need bastards like me. Why would I want to go back to Raraku anyway? I hated it the first time. I’m not that young, mouthy fool—not what I once was. Did I really think I could recapture something in that holy desert? What, exactly? Lost years? That charging momentum that belongs to the young? To soldiers like Smiles and Koryk and Bottle and Tarr. I joined for revenge, but it’s not filling my belly like it used to—Hood knows, nothing does any more. Not revenge. Not loyalty. Not even friendship. Damn you, Kalam, you should’ve talked me out of it. Right there in Malaz City. You should’ve called me a fool to my face.
