‘He’s run off,’ Petal groaned from nearby.
She searched for and found the man lying like a beached whale. For a moment she entertained the idea of attempting to help him up, reconsidered. There was no way she could budge that great bulk.
Skinner arrived then, and clasping the man by the robes at his shoulder, hauled him to his feet. ‘We are returned,’ Petal announced, peering about.
‘Indeed,’ Mara murmured, but only half scathingly. She’d learned more of the man during this mission than she’d ever known before – or in truth had bothered to know before. While he might be awkward, plodding and pedantic in his mannerisms, he was also no fool. She might have been wrong to be so dismissive of him all these years. He was loyal, and conveniently apolitical. Perhaps she should dedicate some time to finding the lever that would bind him to her. If she could then cajole Red to her side … then … then she would have real clout and could consider intervening in command decisions. If necessary. For Skinner’s own good, of course.
A Thaumaturg officer approached, pushing aside the ferns and hanging vines. He saluted Skinner. ‘Master Golan has a standing order that you report at once, sir.’
Skinner did not answer the salute. ‘Fine,’ he growled. The officer inclined his head and marched stiffly away. Skinner indicated the column. ‘They are making even less time than I’d imagined.’
‘None will see daylight again,’ Petal affirmed.
‘Well then,’ Mara said, and she invited Skinner onward. ‘Things are proceeding nicely.’
* * *
Master Golan’s covered palanquin was now no more than a sagging chair on poles. He sat in it glowering down at them and slapping a horsehair switch about his head and shoulders to ward off the hanging clouds of insects. ‘And where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘Perhaps it is an amusing idiosyncrasy of mine, but I prefer my allies to be present at my battles.’
Skinner gave a vague gesture. ‘We were pursuing leads. There have been many attacks, then?’
The Thaumaturg’s wide frog mouth clamped shut and he frowned, seemingly uncomfortable.
A scrawny clerk nearby cleared his throat. ‘Attacks from the Witch-Queen’s creatures have in fact fallen off sharply.’
Master Golan glared at the man.
Skinner gave a slow nod of agreement. ‘Excellent. Our approach is working, then. Anything else?’
‘No,’ the Thaumaturg allowed, almost choking on the word. ‘That is all. You will notify me when you next plan on wandering off pursuing these, ah, leads. Yes?’
Skinner half bowed. ‘Yes.’
‘Very good.’ Master Golan waved the switch. ‘You may go.’
Walking away, Skinner ordered Mara, ‘Find me Jacinth and Shijel.’
* * *
They met together in conclave around a fire that, like all those kindled here in Himatan, generated far more smoke than any appreciable heat or flame. Skinner stood, helm under an arm, his thick dirty-blond hair flattened with sweat. He was growing a full ruddy-blond beard as well. No scabbard hung from his weapon belt; he’d thrown it away as useless. While everyone else’s armour and fittings betrayed the green, black and ochre-rust of corrosion from the constant damp, the glittering black mail that swept down to his ankles revealed no such deterioration. It occurred to Mara that perhaps it was enamelled, or consisted of some sort of non-metal layering. A hardened resin, perhaps.
Shijel had discarded any pretence to armour and wore now only a hauberk of banded layers of leather, and a scarlet silk sash over wide black trousers pulled tight at the ankles by tall sandals. His twinned Untan duelling swords were thrust through the sash. The man had always dressed his black hair straight and long. But now because of the lack of water for washing and the crabs and lice that infested everyone, he had hacked it all off and now stood with a stubbled scalp, scraped raw and clotted by dried scabs of blood. His lean wolfish features held a barely suppressed impatience.
Red, the company’s third surviving mage, stood wrapped in his tattered old camp blanket. The grey stubble of a beard, as no one was shaving any more, lined his sunken aged cheeks. The patches of iron-grey hair on his mostly bald pate stood unkempt in all directions. His rheumy eyes, however, still held their usual humour. As if this were all one big joke – on them. Petal stood next to him, appearing even greater in bulk for it. He nibbled on a yellow star-shaped fruit taken from the jungle.
Jacinth came to stand next to Mara and she nodded her greeting. The lieutenant’s thick auburn hair was piled up high off her neck and held there by long metal pins. Her armour of leather scales, enamelled bright crimson and engraved in intaglio swirls, appeared no worse for wear. She must oil the damned suit every night. So far Mara had always got along with her, or at least Jacinth was no more dismissive and scornful of her than of anyone else. Everyone knew there was only one reason why she stood now with Skinner – because Shimmer had not.
‘Casualties?’ Skinner asked her.
She frowned a negative, to which Skinner grunted his acceptance. This was as much cooperation as the swordswoman ever allowed; she’d probably tell the god of death to piss off.
‘We’re wasting our time here,’ Shijel growled.
Skinner scratched his chin beneath his beard. His gaze remained on the smouldering fire, thoughtful.
Petal cleared his throat, cautiously. ‘I am of a mind with our weaponmaster,’ he put in.
Shijel appeared quite surprised. ‘You are?’
‘How so?’ Skinner asked, not looking up.
All other eyes turned to the big man and his cheeks flushed. He picked at the fruit. ‘Well, clearly Ardata’s attention is not here – yes?’
Jacinth rolled her eyes to the branches of the jungle canopy arching above. Mara took it upon herself to prompt, ‘Yes?’
‘Just so.’ Petal nodded, his fat neck wobbling. ‘So. The question implied by this is – just what is commanding her attention?’
Skinner’s gaze rose, slit now almost closed. ‘I see your point, Petal.’
The fat man was nodding even more vigorously, his chin doubling and tripling. ‘Yes. We were perhaps wrong to so casually allow a certain thing to wander willy-nilly through the jungle. What if it should fall into her hands? Would this not complicate things?’
Mara started, surprised. Ye gods! Why didn’t I think of that?
Skinner was stroking his chin, his gaze on the shadowed recesses of the jungle. ‘Thank you, Petal. Perhaps I was too hasty earlier.’ The big mage hunched his rounded shoulders, keenly embarrassed by the praise. ‘Now we just have to find that damned priest.’
‘I believe he travels with the labourers,’ Mara supplied.
Skinner gave a curt nod and a wave, indicating the end of the meeting. Everyone went their own way.
* * *
Many generations ago the fisherfolk of Tien learned not to fool with the field of towering dolmens that lay on this spit of land. It was not for them. Foreigners, however, appeared to never learn better. Every few years or so ships would come and these foreigners would unload their cargo of weapons and metal equipage. Then they would troop inland.
Mostly they returned much diminished in treasure and in blood. Sometimes they never returned. Often these visitations were accompanied by unnatural lights and sounds, or low clouds in which shadowy shapes moved. Sometimes even the earth itself shook. When this happened the fisherfolk hid in their huts, clutched their idols, and prayed to every god and demon in existence that they be passed over.
And so it was even stranger than usual that the low churning clouds should return so long after the latest batch of foreigners had fled. Flickering aurora-like flares cast their glow against the night sky and muted roars and cries terrorized everyone. The earth even shuddered now and then. The clustered households, hardly a village, gathered to decide what to do. Mostly they yelled and wept and struck one another but out of the free-for-all emerged the sound consensus that most societies reach: that the weakest and least important of th
em should go have a look.
So useless Gall, mostly just called Lackwit, was kicked from the hut and told to go or never be fed again. He cried and clutched the doorpost, but a well-placed bare foot to his face sent their brave scout on his way.
He blubbered and wiped the snot from his face as he staggered up the dunes into the storm of winds and dark roiling clouds. Fiercely blowing sands struck him, as would be the case in any normal windstorm. But this one raged only over the dolmens and not further up the spit in either direction. He tied a scrap of rag over his mouth and nose and leaned into the wind. It was dark now. Churned sand and dust mixed with the clouds to paint everything a dirty yellow. The inconsistent winds gusted fiercely only to suddenly die out to nothing. Gall was reduced to crawling on all fours.
He banged his head into a stone and lay with his arms wrapped around his throbbing skull. After a time he opened his eyes to see that he’d found a dolmen. He could make out other noises now over the booming winds: what sounded like great snarling roars of rage such as those from some enormous animal. Like a bear, was all that he could think of. Except much larger. Large enough to shake the earth.
Yet occasionally other sounds emerged from the dark. What sounded like a woman’s cries of pain and grunts of effort. Or dark cursing in words he could not understand. This confused him as he lay behind the cover of the dolmen, until he hit upon the image of a woman cornered by a bear. Another image briefly came to mind, of a bear and a woman mating, and even though the idea aroused him he set it aside because he wanted to be the one mating with the woman. This happy idea emboldened him to crawl closer.
Ahead, the storm of dust and thrown sand thickened to a near soup of darkness. Yet he could still make out something thrashing within: rearing, reaching, writhing. Unfortunately, it didn’t resemble either a bear or a woman. The only thing it reminded him of was either a monstrous bat – as he thought he’d glimpsed something like a webbed wing – or a snake, given all the flailing and twisting.
Then a limb emerged above the thickest roiling clouds of dust. It kept on rising, uncoiling, and at its end was an immense dagger-like head. All thoughts of bears and women and bats and snakes slid from Gall. It was something he’d heard told of and described in the stories he loved to listen to at night. A naga. A lizard-snake of the sort who served the Night-Queen, ruler of all the jungle. Caught here in the dolmens. Was that what this field of dolmens was? A huge trap for these creatures? Was this why they’d never seen one before?
The head and long neck thrashed, straining from side to side. Unseen wings pumped, churning up a massive billowing dirty yellow mass of sand and dust that stung his slit eyes. An unnerving groan of grinding stone rose then. A shearing sound, like rock in pain. A great tall silhouette in the darkness shifted. One of the dolmens fell inward, sliding into its separate piled sections. Something struck the ground nearby, in a meaty thump and shush of dry sliding sand and gravel, followed by silence.
The dark cloud slowly dispersed as the sands and dust came drifting down. The inner central ring of gravel appeared to have returned to its normal smooth calm. Heat radiated from it, though, like a stone taken from a fire. To Gall it felt as if he were pressing his face right up against a hearth.
A groan and a cough sounded from somewhere among the standing dolmens. He was encouraged once again, for it sounded like a woman. He searched among the forest of pillars. First he found the missing one. Or rather, where it had once stood at the very edge of the central ring. Now nothing of it remained. Gall wondered where it had gone. Had the naga flown off with it?
Then he found her. The woman. And she was naked! Despite his recent terror Gall’s member stirred to urgent life. Now they would mate. He would tell her he rescued her from the naga – just as in the old stories! He, Gall, naga-slayer!
The woman pushed herself upright and peered about. Gall’s member wilted as he saw how her eyes sizzled like the sun touching the horizon and how the sands smoked beneath her. Those eyes found him and their hooded gaze seemed to lacerate him like knives. He fell flat to his stomach, cringing and whimpering.
With his hands over his head he could only see the ground nearby. Here bare feet stopped and the goddess – perhaps the Night-Queen herself – spoke: ‘I would take your pitiful rags but I see that you’ve peed in them. And worse.’ The feet moved on.
After a time he worked up the courage to raise his head. She was gone. Perhaps the naga had come and taken her too. Or perhaps she rode it like a horse. There were stories of that too. But no, her footprints were clear. She was headed south. Of course! Back to Himatan! Where else would such a one go? Or come from, for that matter.
Gall headed back to the shore. He was frowning and distracted as he tried to work through what he’d seen. It was a labour he was unaccustomed to and it made his head hurt. At the hut the others confronted him.
‘What did you see?’
‘Were there foreigners there?’
‘We heard a yell in the winds – was that you crying for your mother?’
It was a strange sensation for Gall to suddenly discover that everyone was depending upon him. He realized that he didn’t want to let them down. And so he clenched his hands and brows and began, slowly, choosing his words with great care: ‘I believe a powerful spirit wandered out of Himatan and was trapped by the dolmens. It escaped and returned to the jungle.’
The others stared, stunned and amazed by the most eloquent and cogent speech they’d ever heard from him. Then as a group they fell upon him, beating his back and head with their fists and kicking him.
‘Fool!’
‘Liar!’
‘Expect us to believe that?’
‘You never even went, did you!’
Crouched beneath the flurry of blows, Gall wished then that he’d stayed with the whole naga-slaying and mating story instead.
CHAPTER IX
Of the semi-mythical lands some know as ‘Jacuruku’, accounts from returned shipwrecked sailors tell of great earthworks and large reservoirs within the boundless tracts of deadly jungle. Such claims, if true, lead one to wonder just who may have constructed such large edifices. Very probably they are the remnants of relatives of our own ancestors who themselves, according to legend, once migrated by ship across the waters in search of other lands. For who else could possess the intelligence, the drive and the determination to conquer such unmitigated wilds?
Authors Various
A History of Mare Shipwrecks and Wanderings
From Golan’s side, principal scribe thorn announced loudly: ‘So, a great river blocks our advance, Magister.’ Golan’s fists, clasping the Rod of Execution behind his back, tightened until they tingled. He noted that he and the scribe stood not a pace from the mud shore of said great river that extended on and on before them as a gently rippling rust-red span many chains across. From the corner of his vision he studied the man for any sign of sarcasm or smirking mockery. Finding no such overt hints on the sallow features, he let go a heavy wondering sigh. ‘Indeed, Principal Scribe. Anything else new to report?’
Undeterred, the man consulted a rolled sheet of fibre paper. ‘Yes, Magister. Losses continue. Losses among the draught and food animals from sickness, wild animal attacks and desertions. Losses among the—’ He broke off as Golan had raised a hand to signal a query.
‘Excuse me, Principal Scribe. But did you say “desertions”?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Our draught oxen and mules and our feed cows are deserting us?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Our cause is hopeless indeed,’ Golan murmured aside.
Principal Scribe Thorn bowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘Magister, each animal is a member of this Righteous Army of Chastisement. Duly entered and so registered. Should they abandon the column for the wilds without permission or orders then we are required to record them as deserters.’
Golan tapped the blackwood rod in one palm. He raised his brows. ‘Do go on.’
> Thorn returned to the scroll. He tapped his feather quill to his chin. ‘The last of the wagons and carts and other such means of transport have been abandoned as undesirable.’
‘Meaning there are not enough men and animals to continue to drag the useless things through the jungle.’
‘Quite so.’
Golan frowned in slight confusion. ‘Yet you say draught animals remain with us – the few who have not fallen to the foaming at the mouth, the walking in circles, these horrifying worm infestations, or this hoof-rot illness.’
‘All remaining animals are being transferred to feed stock.’
‘Ah, ergo the desertions,’ Golan muttered, enlightened.
‘I’m sorry, Magister. Was that new orders?’ Thorn enquired.
‘No. Please do continue.’
Thorn consulted the scroll. ‘Ah! Happily, stores and supplies have been reduced to such a point that all can easily be carried by the remaining bearers.’
‘Encouraging news indeed.’
‘I knew it would please you.’
‘And casualties?’
‘No casualties from enemy actions or resistance reported, Magister.’
‘No casualties? Excellent news.’
The scribe touched the point of his quill to his tongue, which was blackened by the habit. He scribbled on the sheet. ‘I did not say that, lord,’ he murmured into the limp dissolving papers.
‘No? You did not? Go on.’
‘Magister, should present rates of deaths from illness and infections continue, then I am saddened to report that we would all be dead within the month.’
‘Such a report would show admirable dedication given that we would all be dead.’
Principal Scribe Thorn did not raise his eyes from the sheet as he observed mildly, ‘My lord’s sophisticated banter is far beyond his humble servant.’
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 302