He paused then, noting the Adjunct’s involuntary start. ‘Ah, your escort. Yes, my brother insists that he accompany you through the neighbouring kingdoms. Quite simply, neither Saphinand nor Bolkando can be trusted to do anything but betray and undermine you at every turn. Depressing neighbours—but then, so were we to them not so long ago. I am considering announcing a Royal Project to construct the world’s highest fence for ever separating our respective territories, with some fine hedging to soften the effect. Yes yes, dear wife, I am now rambling and yes, it was fun!’
‘Sire,’ said Tavore, ‘thank you for the offer of an escort, but I assure you, there is no need. Those kingdoms we seek to pass through may well be treacherous, but I doubt they can succeed in surprising us.’ Her tone was flat and though she couldn’t see, Lostara was certain that the Adjunct’s eyes were if anything even flatter.
‘They are thieves,’ said Brys Beddict. ‘Your baggage train, Adjunct, will be enormous—the lands you seek are bereft—it may be that even Kolanse itself is unable to accommodate you.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Tavore. ‘I do not recall stating our intended destination.’
‘There’s little else out there,’ said Brys, shrugging.
The Adjunct said nothing and all at once the atmosphere was tense.
‘Preda Brys,’ said the King, ‘will be assisting in policing your train as you pass through two entire nations of pickpockets.’
Still Tavore hesitated. ‘Sire, we have no desire to embroil your kingdom in a war, should Saphinand or Bolkando attempt to betray the passage agreements.’
‘It will be our very presence,’ said Brys, ‘that will ensure nothing so overt on their part, Adjunct. Please understand, if we do not escort you and you subsequently find yourselves in a vicious war with no retreat possible, then we in turn will have no choice but to march to your rescue.’
‘Just so,’ agreed the King. ‘So accept the escort, Adjunct, or I shall hold my breath until I achieve a most royal shade of purple.’
Tavore bowed her head in acquiescence. ‘I withdraw all objections, sire. Thank you for the escort.’
‘That’s better. Now, I must now seek reassurance from my staff on three distinct issues. Chancellor, are you content with everything pertaining to outfitting the Adjunct’s forces?’
‘I am, sire,’ said Bugg.
‘Excellent. Royal Treasurer, are you confident that the Malazans have sufficient funds for this enterprise?’
‘So I am assured, sire,’ said Bugg.
‘Good. Ceda, do you concur that the departure of the Malazans will hasten the healing that has befallen the city?’
‘I do, sire,’ said Bugg.
‘Consensus at last! How delightful! Now what should we do?’
Queen Janath stood. ‘Food and wine awaits us in the dining hall. Allow me to lead our guests.’ And she stepped down from the dais.
‘Darling wife,’ said Tehol, ‘for you I make all manner of allowances.’
‘I am relieved that you so willingly assume such a burden, husband.’
‘So am I,’ he replied.
Chapter Six
The beetle that walks slowly has nothing to fear.
SAPHII SAYING
Coated in dust-spattered blood, Vedith rode out of the billowing smoke, in his wake piteous screams and the raucous roar of flames as they engulfed the three-storey government building in the town’s centre. Most of the other structures lining the main street were already gutted, although fires still licked the blackened frames and the foul smoke lifted pillars skyward.
Four other riders emerged behind Vedith, scimitars unsheathed, the Aren steel blades streaked with gore.
Hearing their wild whoops, Vedith scowled. The mangled round shield strapped to his right forearm had driven splinters through the wrist and that hand could not grip the reins. In his left hand he held his own scimitar, the blade snapped a hand’s-width above the hilt—he would have thrown it away but he valued the hilt, grip and pommel too much to part with it.
His horse’s reins dragged between the beast’s front legs and at any moment the galloping mount, in her fear and pain, might slam a hoof down on them, which would snap her neck down and send her rider tumbling.
He rose in his stirrups, leaned forward—pounded by the horse’s pitching neck—and bit the animal’s left ear, tugging backwards. Squealing, the beast’s head lifted, her plunging hoofs slowing, drawing up. This gave Vedith time to sheathe what was left of his father’s sword and then slip his arm round the horse’s neck, easing the pressure of his teeth.
Moments later, the wounded mare pitched and wobbled down off the cobbled road into the high grasses of the ditch and clumped to a halt, body trembling.
Murmuring calming words, the warrior released the animal’s ear and settled back on the saddle, collecting the reins with his one usable hand.
His four companions rode up and, beasts jostling on the road, they held their swords high in triumph, even as they spat dust and blood from their mouths.
Vedith felt sick. But he understood. The growing list of proscriptions, the ever-dwindling freedom, the indignities and undisguised contempt. Each day in the past week more Bolkando soldiers had arrived, fortlets springing up round the Khundryl encampment like mushroom knuckles on dung. And tensions twisted ever tighter. Arguments burst to life like spotfires, and then, all at once—
He guided his horse back on to the road and glared back at the burning town. And then scanned the horizons to either side. Columns of coiling black smoke rose everywhere like crooked spears—yes, the patience of the Burned Tears was at an end, and he knew that a dozen villages, twice as many hamlets, scores of farms and, now, one town, had felt the wrath of the Khundryl.
Vedith’s raiding party, thirty warriors—most of them barely into their third decade—had clashed with a garrison. The fighting had been ferocious. He’d lost most of his troop, and this had been fuel enough to set ablaze the Khundryl fury, inflicting wrathful vengeance upon wounded soldiers and the civilian inhabitants of the town.
The taste of that slaughter left a bitter, toxic stain, inside and out.
His horse could not hold still. Her slashed flank still bled freely. She circled, head tossing, kicking with the wounded hind leg.
They’d left scores of corpses in that nameless town. This very morning it had been a peaceful place, life awakening and crawling on to the old familiar trails, a slow beating heart. Now it was ruin and charred meat—they’d not even bothered looting, so fierce upon them was the lust for slaughter.
To a proud people, the contempt of others drives the deepest wound. These Bolkando had thought the Khundryl knives were dull. Dull knives, dull minds. They had thought they could cheat the savages, mock them, ply them with foul liquor and steal their wealth.
We are Seven Cities—did you think you were the first to try to play such games with us?
Stragglers were still emerging—three, two, a lone wounded warrior slumped over his saddle, two more.
The soldiers of the garrison had not understood how to meet a cavalry charge. It was as if they had never before seen such a thing, gaping at the precise execution, the deadly timing of the javelins launched when the two sides were but a dozen paces apart. The Bolkando line—formed up across the main street—had crumpled as the barbed javelins punched through shield and scale armour, as figures reeled, buckled and fouled others.
The Khundryl warhorses and their howling, scimitar-slashing riders then smashed into that tattered formation.
A slaughter. Until the rear sections of the Bolkando dispersed, scattering into clumps, pelting into the side avenues, the alleys, the sheltered mouths of stone-faced shops. The battle broke up then, knots spinning away. Khundryl warriors were forced to dismount, unable to press into the narrower alleys, or draw back out into the open soldiers crouched behind drawn-up shields in the niches of doorways. Still outnumbered, warriors of the Burned Tears began falling.
It had taken most of the
morning to hunt down and butcher the last garrison soldier. And barely a bell to murder the townsfolk who had not fled—who had, presumably, imagined that seventy-five soldiers would prevail against a mere thirty savages—and then set fire to the town, roasting alive the few who had successfully hidden themselves.
Such scenes, Vedith knew, were raging across the entire countryside now. No one was spared, and to deliver the message in the clearest way imaginable, every Bolkando farm was being stripped of anything and everything edible or otherwise useful. The revolt had been ignited by the latest Bolkando price hike—a hundred per cent, applicable only to the Khundryl—on all necessities, including fodder for the horses. Revile us, yes, even as you take our silver and gold.
He had a dozen warriors with him now, one of them likely to die soon—well before they reached the encampment. And thick splinters rode up his forearm like extra longbones, pain throbbing.
Yes, the losses had been high. But then, what other troop had attacked a garrisoned town?
Still, he wondered if, perhaps, the Burned Tears had kicked awake the wrong nest.
‘Bind Sidab’s wounds,’ he now said in a growl. ‘Has he his sword?’
‘He has, Vedith.’
‘Give it to me—mine broke.’
Although he was dying and knew it, Sidab lifted his head at this and showed Vedith a red smile.
‘It shall weight my hand as did my father’s sword,’ Vedith said. ‘I shall wield it with pride, Sidab.’
The man nodded, smile fading. He coughed out a gout of blood and then slid out of his saddle, thumping heavily on to the cobbled road.
‘Sidab stays behind.’
The others nodded and spat to make a circle round the corpse, thus sanctifying the ground, completing the only funeral ceremony needed for Khundryl warriors on the path of war. Vedith reached out and took up the reins of Sidab’s horse. He would take the beast as well, and ride it, to ease his own mount’s discomfort. ‘We return to Warleader Gall. Our words shall make his eyes shine.’
Warleader Gall sagged back into his antler and rope throne, the knots creaking. ‘Coltaine’s sweet breath,’ he sighed, squeezing shut his eyes.
Jarabb, Tear Runner to the warleader and the only other occupant of Gall’s tent, removed his helmet, and then the padded doeskin cap, and raked thick fingers through his hair, before stepping forward and dropping to one knee. ‘Command me,’ he said.
Gall groaned. ‘Not now, Jarabb. The time for play’s over—my Fall-damned young braves have given us a war. Twenty raids have howled back into camp, sacks filled with hens and pups and whatnot. I’d wager nigh on a thousand innocent farmers and villagers already dead—’
‘And hundreds of soldiers, Warleader,’ reminded Jarabb. ‘The fortlets burn—’
‘And I’ve been coughing from the smoke all morning—we didn’t need to torch them—that timber would have been useful. So we spit and snarl like a desert lynx in her lair, and what do you think King Tarkulf is going to do? Wait, never mind him—the man’s got fungi for brains—it’s the Chancellor and his cute Conquestor we have to worry about. Let me tell you what they’ll do, Jarabb. They won’t demand we return to this camp. They won’t insist on reparations and blood-coin. No, they’ll raise an army and march straight for us.’
‘Warleader,’ Jarabb said, straightening, ‘wildlands beckon us north and east—once out on the plains, no one can catch us.’
‘All very well, but these Bolkando aren’t our enemy. They were supplying us—’
‘We loot all we can before fleeing.’
‘And won’t the Adjunct be thrilled by how we’ve smoothed the sand before her. This is a mess, Jarabb. A mess.’
‘What, then, will you do, Warleader?’
Gall finally opened his eyes, blinked, and then coughed. After a moment he said, ‘I won’t try to mend what cannot be undone. This aids the Adjunct nothing. No, we need to seize the bull’s cock.’ He surged to his feet, collected up his crow-feather cloak. ‘Break this camp—kill all livestock and start curing the meat. It will be weeks before the Bolkando muster the numbers they need against us. To ensure safe passage of the Bonehunters—not to mention the Grey Helms—we’re going to march on the capital. We’re going to pose such a threat that Tarkulf voids his bladder and overrules his advisors—I want the King thinking he might be facing a three-pronged invasion of his piss-ass latrine pit of a kingdom.’
Jarabb smiled. He could see the embers glowing in his warleader’s dark eyes. Which meant that, once all the orders were barked and all the other runners were scrambling dust-trails, Gall’s mood would be much improved.
Sufficient, perhaps, to once more invite some . . . play.
All he need do was make sure the old man’s wife was nowhere close.
Shield Anvil Tanakalian shifted uncomfortably beneath his chain surcoat. The quilted underpadding had worn through on his right shoulder—he should have patched it this morning and would have done so had he not been so eager to witness the landing of the first cohort of Grey Helms on this wretched ground.
For all his haste he found Mortal Sword Krughava already positioned on the rise overlooking the shoreline, red-faced beneath her heavy helm. Though the sun was barely above the mountain peaks to the east, the air was stifling, oppressive, swarming with sand flies. As he approached he could see in her eyes the doom of countless epic poems, as if she had devoted her life to absorbing the tragedies of a thousand years’ worth of fallen civilizations, finding the taste savagely pleasing.
Yes, she was a holy terror, this hard, iron woman.
Upon arriving at her side, he bowed in greeting. ‘Mortal Sword. This is a portentous occasion.’
‘Yet but two of us stand here, sir,’ she rumbled in reply, ‘when there should be three.’
He nodded. ‘A new Destriant must be chosen. Who among the elders have you considered, Mortal Sword?’
Four squat, broad-beamed avars—the landing craft of the Thrones of War—were fast closing on the channel wending through the mud flats, oar blades flashing. The tide wasn’t cooperating at all. The bay should be swelling with inflow; instead the water churned, as if confused. Tanakalian squinted at the lead avar, expecting it to run aground at any moment. The heavily burdened brothers and sisters would have to disembark and then slog on foot—he wondered how deep the mud was out there.
‘I am undecided,’ Krughava finally admitted. ‘None of our elders happens to be very old.’
True enough. This long sea voyage had worn through the lives of a score or more of the most ancient brothers and sisters. Tanakalian swung round to study the two encampments situated two thousand paces inland, one on this side of the river and the other on the opposite, west side. As yet there had been no direct contact with the Akrynnai delegation—if the mob of spike-haired, endlessly singing, spear-waving barbarians truly justified such an honorific. So long as they stayed on the other side of the river, the Akrynnai could sing until the mountains sank into the sea.
The Bolkando camp, an ever burgeoning city of gaudy tents, was already aswarm—as if the imminent landing of the Perish had sent them into a frenzy. Strange people, these Bolkando. Scar-faced yet effete, polite yet clearly bloodthirsty. Tanakalian did not trust them, and it looked as if their escort through the mountain passes and into the kingdom amounted to an entire army—three or four thousand strong—and though he didn’t think the average Bolkando soldier could hope to match a Grey Helm, still their sheer numbers were cause for concern. ‘Mortal Sword,’ he said, facing her once more, ‘do we march into betrayal?’
‘This journey must be considered one through hostile territory, Shield Anvil. We will march in armour, weapons at hand. Should the Bolkando escort precede us into the pass, then I shall have no cause for worry. Should they divide to form advance and rear elements, I will be forced to take measure of the strength of that rearguard. If it is modest then we need have little concern. If it is overstrength relative to the advance element, then one must consider t
he possibility that a second army awaits us at the far end of the pass. Given,’ she added, ‘that we must travel in column, such an ambush would put us at a disadvantage, initially at least.’
‘We had best hope,’ observed Tanakalian, ‘that they intend treating with us honourably.’
‘If not, they will regret their temerity, sir.’
Three legions, eighteen cohorts and three supply companies. Five thousand brothers and sisters in the land force. The remaining legions would accompany the Thrones of War on the ill-mapped sea-lanes south of the coast, seeking the Pelasiar Sea. It had been the judgement of both the Adjunct and Krughava that the Burned Tears needed support. Given the reported scarcity of resources in the Wastelands, the Bonehunters would travel independent of the more southerly forces consisting of the Khundryl mounted and the Perish foot legions. The two elements would march eastward on parallel tracks, with perhaps twenty leagues between them, until reaching the borders of the first kingdom beyond the Wastelands.
In Krughava’s mind, Tanakalian well knew, a holy war awaited them, the singular purpose of their existence, and upon that foreign soil the Grey Helms would find their glory, their heroic triumph in service to the Wolves of Winter. He shared with her that sense of purpose, fate’s bold promise, and like her he did not fear war. They were trained in the ways of violence, sworn to those cusps of history hacked into shape on battlefields. With sword and will, they could change the world. Such was the truth of war, for all that soft fools might wish otherwise, might dream of peace and harmony between strangers.
Romantics with their wishful notions invariably delivered the asp’s bite, whether they sought to or not. Hope and faith seeped through like the sweetest nectar, only to sour into vile poison. Most virtues, Tanakalian well knew, were defenceless. Abused and corrupted with ease, ever made to turn in the wielder’s hand. It took a self-deluded mind to force justice upon a world when that world cared for nothing; when all reality mocked the righteous with its indifference.
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