The transfer was smooth and Rafala’s lips tightened, as if the notion of a compliment threatened nausea. She dropped back to come up behind Kisswhere, taking the reins of her warrior’s battle-horse. Moments later she was leading that mount away.
Kisswhere looked over to see Gall grinning. ‘I know just the place,’ he said.
The Barghast barked a laugh.
‘Ride with the Khundryl then,’ Krughava said to her. ‘Lead them to the Bonehunters.’
Gods below— how to get out of this? ‘I fear I would only slow them, Mortal Sword. While this mount is fresh I, alas, am not.’
‘Ever slept between two horses?’ Gall asked.
‘Excuse me?’
‘A slung hammock, Kisswhere, with tent poles to keep the beasts apart. This is how we carry wounded whilst on the move.’
All these women, looking at her. Knowing, seeing what the men did not. Showing all your sharp little teeth, are you? So delighted to see me trapped. To Gall she said, ‘If it comes to that need, Warleader, I will tell you.’
‘Very good,’ the warrior replied. ‘Then, let us ride to my Burned Tears. Highness, Mortal Sword, when next we meet it shall be in the Adjunct’s command tent. Until then, travel well and may the gods be blinded by your dust.’
Kisswhere set off with the Warleader and they cut eastward and slightly arrears to where the main mass of the horsewarriors rode in loose formations. Once clear of the vanguard, Gall said, ‘My apologies, soldier. I see that you have discarded your uniform, and the last place you want to go is back to where you came from. But the Mortal Sword is a stern woman. Not one Perish Grey Helm has ever deserted, and should one ever try, I doubt they’d manage to live long. She would have acted on the Adjunct’s behalf, no matter the consequences. In every army imaginable, the Bonehunters included I’m sure, desertion is a death sentence.’
Not stupid after all. ‘I was commanded to give nothing away whilst riding alone, Warleader, and so I wore nothing that could be construed to be a uniform.’
‘Ah, I see. Then I must apologize a second time, Kisswhere.’
She shrugged. ‘My sister walks in that column, Warleader. How could I not seek to return as quickly as possible?’
‘Of course. I understand now.’
He fell into something like an amiable silence as they approached the Burned Tears. She wondered if he’d been fooled. True, simple wasn’t necessarily the same as stupid, after all. She’d given reasonable answers, with only a hint of affront. Aye, a little dignity before the insult, as my mother used to say, makes a fine weapon.
‘She will be delighted to see you again, I am sure.’
Kisswhere shot the man a searching look, but said nothing.
Columnar clouds heaped the western horizon ahead, and Masan Gilani could feel a cool breeze freshening against her face. She had taken to spelling her horse every three or so leagues, but the animal was wearying nonetheless. It was this detail that killed most deserters, she knew. The pursuing troop would be leading spare mounts, whilst the fool on the fly generally had nothing but the lone beast he or she was riding.
Of course, no one was chasing her, which, oddly enough, did nothing to assuage her guilt. She belonged with her squad, sharing mouthfuls of the same dust, cursing at the same whining flies. And, if things were as bad as people had intimated, she wanted to be there, right beside her friends, to face whatever arrived. Instead, here she was, hunting for … for what? For the tenth time this day she reached to brush her hand against the small leather pouch tied to her belt, confirming it was still there. Lose it, she knew, and this whole mission was a failure.
It probably already is, anyway. I can’t find what I can’t see, pouch or no pouch.
She could see the rain ahead and not much else, grey-blue sheets angling down on the sliding wind, the curtains sweeping across the land. More misery to add to this overflowing kitty. This is pointless. I’m looking for ghosts. Real ghosts? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe just the ghosts living in the Adjunct’s head, those old hoary hags of lost allegiances and forgotten promises. Tavore, you expect too much. You always did.
Rain spat into her face, swarmed the ground until it seemed the dust danced like crazed ants. In moments all visibility beyond a few dozen paces vanished. She was now more blinded to what she was looking for than at any other time.
The world mocked.
Pointless. I’m going back—
Five figures stood before her, grey as the rain, dull as the muddy dust, sudden as a dream. Cursing, she reined in, fought with her panicking horse. Gravel skittered. The beast snorted, hoofs stamping in the sluicing streams and puddles.
‘We are who you seek.’
She could not tell which one the voice came from. She grasped the pouch containing the seething dirt, gift of the Atri-Ceda Aranict, and gasped at its sudden heat.
They were corpses one and all. T’lan Imass. Battered, broken, limbs missing, weapons dangling from seemingly senseless hands of bone wrapped in blackened skin. Long hair, dirty blond and rust red, was plastered down round their desiccated faces, where rainwater ran like eternal tears.
Breathing hard, Masan Gilani studied them for a time, and then she said, ‘Just five of you? No others?’
‘We are who remain.’
She thought the one speaking was the one standing closest to her, but could not be certain. The rain was a roar around them all, the wind moaning as if trapped in an enormous cave. ‘There should be … more,’ she insisted. ‘There was a vision—’
‘We are the ones you seek.’
‘Are you summoned then?’
‘We are.’ And the lead T’lan Imass pointed to the pouch at her hip. ‘Thenik is incomplete.’
‘Which one of you is Thenik?’
The creature on the outside right stepped forward. Every bone looked to be shattered, with splinters and chips missing. A crazed web of cracks broke up its face beneath a helm made from the skull of some unknown beast.
Fumbling with the ties, Masan finally managed to pull free the pouch. She tossed it over. Thenik made no move to catch it. The pouch landed at its feet, sank into a puddle.
‘Thenik thanks you,’ said the speaker. ‘I am Urugal the Woven. With me is Thenik the Shattered, Beroke Soft Voice, Kahlb the Silent Hunter and Halad the Giant. We are the Unbound, who once numbered seven. Now we are five. Soon we shall be seven again—there are fallen kin in this land. Some refuse the enemy. Some will not follow the one who leads nowhere.’
Frowning, Masan Gilani shook her head. ‘You’ve lost me. No matter. I was sent to find you. Now we must return to the Bonehunters—my army—it’s where—’
‘Yes, she is the hunter of bones indeed,’ Urugal said. ‘Her hunt is soon complete. Ride on your beast. We shall follow.’
She wiped water from her eyes. ‘Thought there’d be more of you,’ she muttered, gathering her reins and dragging her horse round. ‘Can you keep up?’ she asked over one shoulder.
‘You are the banner before us, mortal.’
Masan Gilani’s frown deepened. She’d heard something like that before … somewhere.
Four leagues to the northwest, Onos T’oolan suddenly halted, the first time in days. Something not far away had brushed his senses, but now it was gone. T’lan Imass. Strangers. He hesitated, as the more distant and altogether different wave of compulsion returned, insistent, desperate. He knew its flavour, had known its flavour for weeks now. This was what Toc the Younger had sought, what he had demanded of the First Sword.
But he was no longer the friend Toc once knew, just as Toc was no longer the friend Tool himself remembered. The past was both dead and alive, but between them it was simply dead.
The summons was Malazan. It was the claim of alliance as had been forged long ago, between the Emperor and the Logros T’lan Imass. Somewhere to the east, a Malazan force waited. Danger approached, and the T’lan Imass must stand with allies of old. Such was duty. Such was the ink of honour, written so deep as to stain the imm
ortal soul.
He defied the command. Duty was dead. Honour was a lie—see what the Senan had done to his wife, his children. Mortality was the realm of deceit; the sordid room of horror hid in the house of the living, its walls crusted and streaked, dark stains on the warped floor. Dust crowded the corners, dust made of skin flakes and snarls of hair, nail clippings and clots of phlegm. Every house had its secret room, where memories howled in the thick silence.
He had once been of the Logros. He was no longer. He had one duty now and it was truly lifeless. Nothing would turn him aside, not the wishes of Toc the Younger, not the mad aspirations of Olar Ethil—oh yes, he knew she was close, far too clever to come within his reach, knowing well that he would kill her, destroy her utterly. Demands and expectations descended like that distant rain to the southwest, but it all washed from him and left no trace.
There had been a time when Onos Toolan had chosen to stand close to mortal humans; when he had turned his back upon his own kind, and in so doing he had rediscovered the wonders of gentler emotions, the sensual pleasures of camaraderie and friendship. The gifts of humour and love. And then, at last, he had achieved the rebirth of his life—a true life.
That man had taken that life, for reasons even he could barely understand—a flush of empathy, the fullest cost of humanity paid out in the blade pushing into his chest. Strength fell away, in some other direction than the one taken by his sagging body. He had looked out on the world until all meaning drained of colour.
They had done unspeakable things to his corpse. Desecration was the wound delivered upon the dead, and the living did so with careless conceit—no, they would never lie motionless on the ground. They would never rise from cold meat and bones to witness all that was done to the body that been the only home they had ever known. It did not even occur to them that the soul could suffer from phantom agony, the body like a severed hand.
And his adopted kin had simply looked on, stone-eyed. Telling themselves that Tool’s soul was gone from that mangled thing being dismembered on the bloody grasses; that the laughter and mockery could not reach unseen ears.
Could they even have guessed that love alone was of such power that Tool’s soul had also witnessed the hobbling of his wife and the rapes that followed? That, unable to find his children, he had at last set out for the underworld—to find his beloved Hetan, his family, to escape with finality the cruel spikes of the mortal realm?
And you turned me away. Toc. My friend. You turned me back … to this.
He was not that man, not any more. He was not the First Sword either. He was not a warrior of the Logros. He was none of these things.
He was a weapon.
Onos T’oolan resumed his march. The summons meant nothing. Nothing to him, at any rate. Besides, in a very short time it would cease. For evermore.
There was no road leading them through the Wastelands; no road to take them to their destiny, whatever destiny that happened to be. Accordingly, the companies marched in loose units of six squads, and each company was separated from the others yet close enough to those of their own legion to link if need demanded. Groups of six squads were arranged as befitted their function: marines at the core, the mixed units of heavies next, and outside of them the medium regular infantry, with skirmishers forming the outermost curtain.
The massive column that was the supply train forged its own route, hundreds of ox-drawn wagons and bawling herds of goats, sheep, cattle and rodara that would soon begin to starve in this lifeless land. Herd dogs loped round their charges and beyond them the riders entrusted with driving the beasts kept a watchful eye for any strays that might elude the dogs—although none did.
Flanking wings of lancers and mounted archers protected the sides of the column; units of scouts rode well ahead of the vanguard while others ranged on the south flank and arrears, but not to the north, where marched the legions and brigades under command of Brys Beddict. His columns were arranged in tighter formation, replete with its own supply train—almost as big as the Malazan one. Bluerose cavalry rode in wide flank, sending scouts deep into the wastes in a constant cycle of riders and horses.
Mounted, Commander Brys Beddict rode to the inside of his column, close to its head. Off to his right at a distance of about two hundred paces were the Malazans. Riding beside him on his left was Aranict, and they were in turn trailed by a half-dozen messengers. The heat was savage, and the water-wagons were fast being drained of their stores. The Letherii herds of myrid and rodara could manage this land better than sheep and cattle, but before long even they would begin to suffer. The meals at the beginning of this trek across the Wastelands would be heavy on meat, Brys knew, but then things would change.
What lay beyond this forbidding stretch of dead ground? From what he could glean—and rumours served in place of any direct knowledge—there was a desert of some sort, yet one known to possess caravan tracks, and beyond that the plains of the Elan people, a possible offshoot of the Awl. The Elan Plains bordered on the east the kingdoms and city-states of Kolanse and the Pelasiar Confederacy.
The notion of taking an army across first the Wastelands and then a desert struck Brys as sheer madness. Yet, somehow, the very impossibility of it perversely appealed to him, and had they been at war with those distant kingdoms, it would have signified a bold invasion sure to achieve legendary status. Of course, as far as he knew, there was no war and no cause for war. There was nothing but ominous silence from Kolanse. Perhaps indeed this was an invasion, but if so, it was not a just one. No known atrocities demanding retribution, nor a declaration of hostilities from an advancing empire to be answered. We know nothing.
What happens to the soul of a soldier who knows he or she is in the wrong? That they are the aggressors, the bringers of savagery and violence? The notion worried Brys, for the answers that arrived were grim ones. Something breaks inside. Something howls. Something dreams of suicide. And, as commander, he would be to blame. As much as his brother, Tehol. For they were the leaders, the ones in charge, the ones using the lives of thousands of people as mere playing pieces on some stained board.
It is one thing to lead soldiers into war. And it is one thing to send them into a war. But it is, it seems to me, wholly another to lead and send them into a war that is itself a crime. Are we to be so indifferent to the suffering we will inflict on our own people and upon innocent victims in unknown lands?
In his heart dwelt the names of countless lost gods. Many had broken the souls of their worshippers. Many others had been broken by the mortal madness of senseless wars, of slaughter and pointless annihilation. Of the two, the former suffered a torment of breathtaking proportions. There was, in the very end—there must be—judgement. Not upon the fallen, not upon the victims, but upon those who had orchestrated their fates.
Of course, he did not know if such a thing was true. Yes, he could sense the suffering among those gods whose names he held within him, but perhaps it was his own knowledge that engendered such anguish, and that anguish belonged to his own soul, cursed to writhe in an empathic trap. Perhaps he was doing nothing more than forcing his own sense of righteous punishment upon those long-dead gods. And if so, by what right could he do such a thing?
Troubling notions. Yet onward his legions marched. Seeking answers to questions the Adjunct alone knew. This went beyond trust, beyond even faith. This was a sharing of insanity, and in its maelstrom they were all snared, no matter what fate awaited them.
I should be better than this. Shouldn’t I? I lead, but can I truly protect? When I do not know what awaits us?
‘Commander.’
Startled from his dark thoughts, he straightened in his saddle and looked over to his Atri-Ceda. ‘My apologies, were you speaking?’
Aranict wiped sweat from an oddly pale face, hesitated.
‘I believe you are struck with heat. Dismount, and I will send for—’
‘No, sir.’
‘Atri-Ceda—’
He saw the wash of terror and
panic rise into her face. ‘We are in the wrong place! Commander! Brys! We have to get out of here! We have to—we are in the wrong place!’
At that moment, thunder hammered through the earth, a drum roll that went on, and on—
Dust storm or an army? Keneb squinted in the bright glare. ‘Corporal.’
‘Sir.’
‘Ride to the vanguard. I think we’ve sighted the Khundryl and Perish.’
‘Yes, sir!’
As the rider cantered off, Keneb glanced to his left. Brys’s columns had edged slightly ahead—the Malazans had been anything but spry this day. Moods were dark, foul, discipline was crumbling. Knots of acid in his stomach had awakened him this morning, painful enough to start tears in his eyes. The worst of it had passed, but he knew he had to find a capable healer soon.
A sudden wind gusted into his face, smelling of something bitter.
He saw Blistig riding out from his legion, angling towards him. Now what?
Head pounding, Banaschar trudged alongside a heavily laden wagon. He was parched inside, as parched as this wretched land. He held his gaze on the train of oxen labouring in their yokes, the flicking tails, the swarming flies, the fine coat of dust rising up their haunches and flanks. Hoofs thumped on the hard ground.
Hearing some muttering from the troop marching a few paces to his right, he lifted his eyes. The sky had suddenly acquired a sickly hue. Wind buffeted him, tasting of grit, stinging his eyes.
Damned dust storm. She’ll have to call a halt. She’ll have to—
No, that colour was wrong. Mouth dry as stone, he felt a tightening in his throat, a pain in his chest.
Gods no. That wind is the breath of a warren. It’s—oh, Worm of Autumn, no.
He staggered as convulsions took him. Half-blinded in pain, he fell on to his knees.
Sergeant Sunrise dropped his kit bag and hurried over to the fallen priest’s side. ‘Rumjugs! Get Bavedict! He’s looking bad here—’
‘He’s a drunk,’ snapped Sweetlard.
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