She closed on the tent while making a strong effort to withhold any sensing outwards. ‘Carfin?’ she called. No one answered. She edged aside the cloth, peered into the darkness. ‘Carfin?’ Totsin entered after her. She found the Adjunct as before: lying supine, undisturbed. But he was alone and her possessions had been reduced to wreckage. Either the Lady had snapped up the mage of Darkness, or he had escaped. Made his own leap of faith.
She quickly laid a hand upon the young Adjunct’s brow, let out a long breath of relief. ‘The fever has lessened. His mind is … calm. He sleeps.’
‘He actually did it,’ Totsin mused from the entrance. ‘I am astonished.’
Something in the mage’s manner irked Devaleth. ‘You should be grateful.’
‘And … he is gone.’ The man studied her now, hands loose at his sides. ‘What of you, mage of Ruse? It must be hard – being so far from the open sea, from the source of your power.’
Searching for a clean cloth and water, Devaleth said, distracted, ‘I do not have to be on the sea to call upon it.’
‘Ah. Yet you are weakened, yes? By such separation?’
She looked up from digging among the scattered pots and boxes to where he stood at the entrance, his eyes oddly bright in the gloom. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
The man appeared about to say something. He raised his hands to her.
Then someone threw open the tent flap behind him.
*
Suth sat in the grass outside a tent in the infirmary area waiting to be seen by one of the bonecutters who had been sent along with the expeditionary force. Personally, he had no faith in them, though he understood the use of herbs and poultices and such to cure sicknesses and fever and cleanse wound-rot. He also accepted the need to drain the black-blood that can sometimes come to even the smallest cuts. All these mundane healings and procedures he would grudgingly go along with – all except head wounds. From what he’d seen growing up on the Dal Hon plains, head wounds were a mystery to everyone, even these self-professed healers. They’d prescribe the strangest things, from temple-bashings to drilling holes in the skull to remove ‘pressure’.
He swore that if they tried anything like that he’d be out of the tent quicker than shit from one of these gut-sick soldiers around him. From the fighting across the river a great roar reached him and he bolted upright. There appeared to be movement at the front; a breakthrough? Dammit! And he was stuck here!
A man joined him. His shirt-front was sodden, blood dripping to the ground, and he was wiping his hands on a dirty rag. ‘What is it?’ the fellow asked.
‘Might be an advance.’
A grunt and the man eyed him up and down. ‘What in Togg’s name are you doing here?’
Suth pointed to his head. ‘Fell on a rock.’
‘You can walk, talk – you’re fine. Bugger off. There’s enough to handle.’
Suth jerked a salute. ‘Yes, sir!’ He dashed down the slope.
On his way to the bridge he noticed the High Mage’s tent. It leaned drunkenly aside, the cloth torn in places as if it had been attacked. Where they said they were taking the Adjunct! He ran for the tent.
He threw open the flap and an old man he’d never seen before turned upon him. The fellow gestured, his mouth opening. Suth reacted automatically and his sword leapt to the man’s throat.
The man snapped his mouth shut. ‘It’s all right, trooper!’ a woman called from within. ‘Relax.’ The High Mage came forward, pushing the sagging cloth out of her way.
Suth inclined his head. ‘High Mage.’ He sheathed his sword.
‘High Mage …’ the man breathed, something catching in his voice.
‘Honorary only,’ she told him.
He touched a quavering hand to his throat, said, ‘Perhaps I had best be going.’
‘If you must,’ the High Mage answered, her gaze narrow.
‘Yes. In case she should return. Until we meet again, then,’ and he bowed.
The High Mage lowered her head ever so slightly. ‘Until then.’
The man gave Suth a wide berth and walked off down the slope. Suth watched him go, then remembered why he’d come. ‘The Adjunct – how is he?’
The High Mage pulled her gaze from the retreating figure. A frown turned into a smile, her plump cheeks dimpling. ‘I believe he is well, trooper. I do believe he will recover.’
Suth let out a great breath. ‘My thanks, High Mage.’
‘Don’t thank me. Though perhaps I should thank you,’ she added musingly.
‘I’m sorry, High Mage?’
‘Nothing. Now, no doubt you wish to return to the fighting, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well.’ She shooed him away. ‘Go, go.’
Bowing, Suth turned and ran down the slope as best he could. He jogged, hand on his helmet, wincing where it dug into his wound, and he wondered whether he should have told the High Mage that for an instant he could have sworn he’d seen murder in that fellow’s eyes. But that was not something you would mention to a High Mage based upon a fleeting impression, was it? Not if you didn’t want to make a lot of trouble for yourself. And he’d already missed enough of the damned fighting.
*
The Malazan guards posted at the doors to the Envoy’s chambers saluted and stood aside for Greymane. He entered, pulling off his helm, which he slammed down on a convenient table, scattering icons and small reliquary boxes. He pulled off his bloodied gauntlets and scanned the room. A man dressed all in black – black trousers, black cotton shirt, and black vest – sat in a plush chair, smoking. Something that might be a body lay on the floor, hidden under a rich silk bedsheet.
Greymane slapped the gauntlet into his helm, then pulled a white scarf draped over a tall statue of the Lady and wiped away the sweat sheathing his face and the blood smearing his hands. ‘How many more of you are there, hidden away like lice?’ he asked.
The man smiled, revealing tiny white teeth. ‘I’m more of a freelance.’
The High Fist only exhaled noisily through his nostrils. He raised his chin to the body. ‘Is this him?’
‘In the flesh.’
Still wiping his hands, Greymane used a muddied boot to pull the cloth away. He stared at the pale face for some time. ‘Enesh-jer,’ he breathed.
‘You knew him?’
The High Fist scowled at the question. ‘Yes. I knew him well enough.’
The man was studying his thin kaolin pipe. ‘What do you want done with him?’
Greymane stared down at the body for a time. ‘I used to want that head on a pike. Now, I don’t care. Burn him with the rest.’
The man coughed slightly, covering his mouth. He eyed the High Fist anew. ‘These Roolians don’t burn their dead. They bury them.’
‘We don’t have the time.’ He tossed the bloodied scarf on to the body. ‘See to it.’
The man offered a vague bow as the High Fist picked up his helm and stalked out. He sat for a time, tapping the pipe in a palm, frowning.
* * *
Ivanr chose to walk rather than riding in the large two-wheeled cart that had carried Beneth. The conveyance was his now, holding the tent and brazier and few simple goods belonging to the spiritual leader of the Army of Reform. He’d set aside his sword and armour, wearing instead layered plain clothes and a cloak against the winter. He used a walking stick, yes, but other than a shortsword hidden under his cloak he appeared weaponless. His self-appointed bodyguard surrounded him as before, but at a greater, more respectful – and less visible – distance.
Walking in this manner he felt he now had a much better feel for the army. Infantry, men and women, would call out or bow for his attention and he would listen to their comments. Often they were only looking for reassurance that they were doing the right thing – a reassurance he had no reservations in providing. As the days passed he saw an ever greater need for such comfort … or, dare he say, hope. Was this the great secret of leading any revolution? That really all anyone needed
was the assurance, the faith, that they were doing the right thing? At least Ivanr felt in his heart that their goal was desirable. Perhaps that was all he needed.
At night Martal, and sometimes the cavalry commander Hegil, visited after the evening meal. These informal command meetings were quiet and uncomfortable, the memory of Beneth still too raw. Mainly Ivanr asked Martal questions about the strategic aim of the campaign. Apparently this amounted to marching on Ring and defeating the Imperial Army before its walls.
‘Very … ambitious,’ was Ivanr’s comment. ‘You know you will be facing the flower of the Jourilan aristocracy. Hundreds of heavy cavalry who fight with lance and sword. They will mow down these pike formations just by weight and shock.’
‘They may,’ Martal allowed.
‘What of you, Hegil? You know what we’ll be facing.’
The aristocrat leaned back on the cushions, sipped his cup of honeyed tea. The man was nearly bald, his hair all rubbed off from wearing his helmet for most of his adult life. ‘Yes, Ivanr. These won’t be lights, or lancers. But we’ve known what it would come down to. From the beginning Beneth knew. He and Martal worked up a strategy to support the pike squares.’
‘And that is?’ He regarded Martal.
Her short black hair gleamed with sweat and oil. She shrugged, her mouth turned down. ‘We’ll be bringing our own fortress.’
He eyed her, waiting for more, but she would not raise her gaze. Was this all he was to get? Should he push now, in front of Hegil? She may think nothing of outright refusing him … Very well. He’d wait. Push again tomorrow.
Soon after that Hegil cleared his throat, and, bowing to Ivanr, left for his own tent. Martal rose as well. ‘Please,’ Ivanr invited. ‘Won’t you stay a little longer?’
She nodded stiffly, but sat. He studied her more closely now while she kept her gaze averted: her smashed nose, the scars of sword cuts on her forearms and the marks of heavy blunt blows to her cheek. Where had this woman gained her military training? Surely not in any Jourilan school, nor among the Dourkans. Yet she had obviously seen fighting all her life.
‘You are not of Fist, or Jasston, or Katakan. Where are you from?’
A smile of nostalgia touched her mouth, but she was still looking away when she spoke. ‘I was born in a minor city named Netor on the Bloorian plains.’
‘Bloor … ?’
‘I am Quon Talian by birth. What you would call Malazan.’
Ivanr did not know how to react. All the gods! Should this get out … No wonder the distance. The air of mystery surrounding this Black Queen served a good purpose. ‘I’m … amazed,’ he managed. She was the enemy. The grasping foreigners who would steal this land from them – or so ran the common wisdom.
‘How came you …’ But of course.
She was nodding. ‘Yes. The invasion. I grew up the daughter of a minor landholder on the border with a neighbouring country. There were always raids and clashes for control of territory. I experienced my first battle – seven of them against five of us – when I was thirteen. Shortly after that I ran away to join the Imperial Army. I was a captain with the Sixth Army when we landed on Fist.’
‘And you … deserted?’
If the woman was offended, she did not show it. Her expression turned more grim as she studied the far tent wall. ‘You’ve heard the stories, haven’t you? Greymane, Stonewielder, denounced by Malazan Command. Betraying the army, or some such nonsense.’
Or consorting with the Stormriders to undermine the Korelri.
She shrugged. ‘In any case, I was too vocal in my support for him. When he was ousted I had to flee, or face the knife.’ She shrugged again. ‘That’s about it. I wandered, was unable to find transport out of the subcontinent. An attempt to travel south overland brought me to Beneth. And he saved my life.’
‘I see,’ Ivanr breathed. What more could one say to such a tale? Dear gods, are you no more than manipulators of chance and fate? No wonder so far her tactics had defeated the Jourilan. Ivanr knew his own land was too tradition-bound in its methods, too tied to known ways of doing things. This woman came trained in a tradition infamous for its pragmatic embrace of the unconventional. These Malazans would adapt whatever worked; and in Ivanr’s eyes that was to be admired, even though such flexibility and adaptation served them ill here in these lands – leaving them Malazan in name and no more.
Martal bowed and left soon after, and Ivanr let her go. He set the revelation far back in his mind – no hint could be given to anyone – and part of him, the tactician, couldn’t help but admire how in a single stroke the admission, the intimacy of the secret, had entirely bought his trust.
And he tried not to dwell on the conversation until word came to the Army of Reform of a second Malazan invasion.
Some days later a runner summoned Ivanr to the command tent. There he found Martal and lesser officers, including Carr, now a captain, cross-examining a sweaty and exhausted citizen.
‘What evidence was there?’ Martal was asking.
The man, dressed like a common labourer, blinked, uncertain. ‘No evidence, Commander. Everyone agreed, though. The entire ship’s company was alive with the news. Malazan vessels had broken the Mare blockade.’
Ivanr looked sharply at Martal. The woman did not glance at him.
‘Ship’s company? How many?’ another officer asked.
‘Over two hundred, sir.’
‘And they were all in agreement?’
The man blushed. ‘I did not question all. But everyone was talking at once on the pier and none contradicted or disagreed with the others. All carried the same news.’
‘And this vessel came from Stygg?’ Carr asked.
‘Yes, sir. From Shroud. Everyone said they saw signs of Stygg readying for invasion.’
Someone else entered behind Ivanr and all the officers stared, quietening. Ivanr turned: it was the mage, Sister Gosh, in her layered muddied skirts, shawls and stringy iron-grey hair. Martal raised a hand. ‘It is all right. She is welcome.’
‘The news is true,’ Sister Gosh said. ‘A second Malazan invasion.’
Martal glared at the old woman. ‘Everyone out,’ she grated. The officers filed out. Sister Gosh and Ivanr remained. Once they were alone, Martal ground out, ‘You knew.’
‘Oh, yes. But you wouldn’t have believed me. Yeull, the Overlord, has managed to keep it quiet. But Malazan forces are marching upon him and a foreign fleet has entered Black Water Strait.’
Martal crossed to a table kept stocked with bread and cheese, meat, wine and tea, but she touched none of it, her back to them. ‘That man, one of Beneth’s agents in Dourkan, also mentioned certain – hardly credible – rumours about who was leading this invasion …’
‘Yes,’ Sister Gosh said softly, her expression softening. ‘They are true as well.’
The woman’s head sank forward and she leaned much of her weight upon the table. Ivanr looked to the mage. ‘Who? Who is it?’
Sister Gosh eased herself down on some cushions. ‘I think we really could use some tea.’ She looked to Ivanr, cocked a brow.
Ah. He went to the table and poured three small glasses. One he left with Martal, who had not moved, had not even acknowledged him. One he gave to Sister Gosh, and the last he sat with.
‘The second invasion is led by the man who led the first,’ Sister Gosh told him.
Ivanr’s gaze snapped to Martal’s rigid back. But that would mean … ‘No. He was discredited, denounced. How could they reinstate him?’ The very man Martal refused to condemn – at the cost of her career, almost her life. Stonewielder. The Betrayer, as the Korelri named him.
Still facing the tent wall, Martal spoke, her voice almost fey. ‘The worship has been stamped out here in these lands, but we Malazans pay homage to chance, or fate, in the persona of twins. Oponn, the two-faced god of luck.’ She shook her head. ‘Who would have thought …’
‘I believe Beneth did,’ said Sister Gosh.
Martal turned and f
or a fleeting instant Ivanr caught something in her gaze, something like hope, or a desperate yearning, before the woman’s usual cool hard mask reasserted itself and he felt a pang of disappointment. I am no Beneth. To this woman there can be no other Beneth. Like her loyalty to her previous commander, this woman’s devotion is hard won, but once given is never withdrawn.
‘How so?’ she asked, crossing her arms and leaning back against the table.
Unlike so many others, Sister Gosh did not flinch under the commander’s hard stare. ‘Think of the timing. Beneth has been hiding in the mountains for decades, receiving pilgrims, freethinkers, all the disenfranchised and disenchanted, and sending them back out as his agents and missionaries all over the land, into every city, founding sects and congregations of brethren. Laying the groundwork, in short, for a society-wide revolution. Then, out of nowhere, unbidden, inconceivably, his priestess arrives to ignite firestorms of uprisings and outright insurrections all over Jourilan. Yet still Beneth does not act. He waits years. Why?’
Her gaze narrowed, Martal almost sneered, ‘You are suggesting he was awaiting this second invasion?’
The old woman raised her shawl-wrapped shoulders. ‘Think of it. Suddenly, this year, he descends from the safety of his mountain to bring a central organizing presence to this war and reform in Jourilan. Why this year? Perhaps in his visions he saw it.’
‘Coincidence,’ Martal scoffed.
‘Coincidence?’ Sister Gosh answered, a note of scolding in her voice. ‘You who invoke Oponn?’
‘Someone had to act,’ Ivanr mused, almost to himself. ‘The Priestess so much as told me she would not fight.’
A long silence followed that comment and Ivanr looked up, blinking. ‘Yes?’
Both women were staring at him. ‘You’ve met her?’ they said in unison.
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