The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (146 page)

The red-bearded man grinned. “Seems you've earned a place with the best, old man.”

“Hood's breath! I'll not last five minutes in a line of battle. My heart nearly gave out after a skirmish lasting all of three breaths the other night—”

“We won't be front line,” Lull said. “There ain't enough of us left for that. If all goes as planned we won't even get our swords nicked.”

“Oh, very well.” Duiker turned to Coltaine. “Returning the servants to the nobles was a mistake,” he said. “It seems the nobleborn have concluded that you'll not take them away again if they're not fit to stand.”

Bult said, “They showed spine, those servants, at Sekala Crossing. Just holding shields, mind, but hold is what they did.”

“Uncle, do you still have that scroll demanding compensation?” Coltaine asked.

“Aye.”

“And that compensation was calculated based on the worth of each servant, in coin?”

Bult nodded.

“Collect the servants and pay for them in full, in gold jakatas.”

“Aye, though all that gold will burden the nobles sorely.”

“Better them than us.”

Lull cleared his throat. “That coin's the soldiers' pay, ain't it?”

“The Empire honors its debts,” Coltaine growled.

It was a statement that promised to grow in resonance in the time to come, and the momentary silence in the tent told Duiker that he was not alone in that recognition.

 

Capemoths swarmed across the face of the moon. Duiker sat beside the flaked embers of a cooking fire. A nervous energy had driven the historian from his bedroll. On all sides the camp slept, a city exhausted. Even the animals had fallen silent.

Rhizan swept through the warm air above the hearth, plucking hovering insects on the wing. The soft crunch of exoskeletons was a constant crackle.

A dark shape appeared at Duiker's side, lowered itself into a squat, held silent.

After a while, Duiker said, “A Fist needs his rest.”

Coltaine grunted. “And a historian?”

“Never rests.”

“We are denied in our needs,” the Wickan said.

“It was ever thus.”

“Historian, you joke like a Wickan.”

“I've made a study of Bult's lack of humor.”

“That much is patently clear.”

There was silence between them for a time. Duiker could make no claim to know the man at his side. If the Fist was plagued by doubts he did not show it, nor, of course, would he. A commander could not reveal his flaws. With Coltaine, however, it was more than his rank dictating his recalcitrance. Even Bult had occasion to mutter that his nephew was a man who isolated himself to levels far beyond the natural Wickan stoicism.

Coltaine never made speeches to his troops, and while he was often seen by his soldiers, he did not make a point of it as many commanders did. Yet those soldiers belonged to him now, as if the Fist could fill every silent space with a physical assurance as solid as a gripping of forearms.

What happens the day that faith is shattered? What if we are but hours from that day?

“The enemy hunts our scouts,” Coltaine said. “We cannot see what has been prepared for us in the valley ahead.”

“Sormo's allies?”

“The spirits are preoccupied.”

Ah, the Semk godling
.

“Can'eld, Debrahl, Tithan, Semk, Tepasi, Halafan, Ubari, Hissari, Sialk and Guran.”

Four tribes now. Six city legions. Am I hearing doubt?

The Fist spat into the embers. “The army that awaits us is one of two holding the south.”

How in Hood's name does he know this?
“Has Sha'ik marched out of Raraku, then?”

“She has not. A mistake.”

“What holds her back? Has the rebellion been crushed in the north?”

“Crushed? No, it commands all. As for Sha'ik…” Coltaine paused to adjust his crow-feather cape. “Perhaps her visions have taken her into the future. Perhaps she knows the Whirlwind shall fail, that even now the Adjunct to the Empress assembles her legions—Unta's harbor is solid with transports. The Whirlwind's successes will prove but momentary, a first blood-rush that succeeded only because of Imperial weakness. Sha'ik knows…the dragon has been stirred awake, and moves ponderously still, yet when the full fury comes, it shall scour this land from shore to shore.”

“This other army, here in the south…how far away?”

Coltaine straightened. “I intend to arrive at Vathar two days before it.”

Word must have reached him that Ubaryd has fallen, along with Devral and Asmar. Vathar—the third and last river. If we make Vathar, it's a straight run south to Aren—through the most forbidding wasteland on this Hood-cursed continent
. “Fist, the River Vathar is still months away. What of tomorrow?”

Coltaine pulled his gaze from the embers and blinked at the historian. “Tomorrow we crush Kamist Reloe's army, of course. One must think far ahead to succeed, Historian. You should understand that.”

The Fist strolled away.

Duiker stared at the dying fire, a sour taste in his mouth.
That taste is fear, old man. You've not got Coltaine's impenetrable armor. You cannot see past a few hours from now, and you await the dawn in the belief that it shall be your last, and therefore you must witness it. Coltaine expects the impossible, he expects us to share in his implacable confidence. To share in his madness
.

A rhizan landed on his boot, delicate wings folding as it settled. A young capemoth was in the winged lizard's mouth, its struggles continuing even as the rhizan methodically devoured it.

Duiker waited until the creature had finished its meal before a twitch of his foot sent it winging away. The historian straightened. The sounds of activity had risen in the Wickan encampments. He made his way toward the nearest one.

The horsewarriors of the Foolish Dog Clan had gathered to ready their equipment beneath the glare of torch poles. Duiker strode closer. Ornate boiled leather armor had appeared, dyed in deep and muddy shades of red and green. The thick, padded gear was in a style the historian had never seen before. Wickan runes had been burned into it. The armor looked ancient, yet never used.

Duiker approached the nearest warrior, a peach-faced youth busy rubbing grease into a horse's brow-guard. “Heavy armor for a Wickan,” the historian said. “And for a Wickan horse as well.”

The young man nodded soberly, said nothing.

“You're turning yourselves into heavy cavalry.”

The lad shrugged.

An older warrior nearby spoke up. “The warleader devised these during the rebellion…then agreed peace with the Emperor before they could be used.”

“And you have been carrying them around with you all this time?”

“Aye.”

“Why didn't you use this armor at Sekala Crossing?”

“Didn't need to.”

“And now?”

Grinning, the veteran raised an iron helm with new bridge and cheek-guards attached. “Reloe's horde hasn't faced heavy cavalry yet, has it?”

Thick armor doesn't make heavy cavalry. Have you fools ever trained for this? Can you gallop in an even line? Can you wheel? How soon before your horses are winded beneath all that extra weight?
“You'll look intimidating enough,” the historian said.

The Wickan caught the skepticism and his grin broadened.

The youth set down the brow-guard and began strapping on a sword belt. He slid the blade from the scabbard, revealing four feet of blackened iron, its tip rounded and blunt. The weapon looked heavy, oversized in the lad's hands.

Hood's breath, one swing'll yank him from his saddle
.

The veteran grunted. “Limber up there, Temul,” he said in Malazan.

Temul immediately launched into a complex choreography, the blade blurring in his hand.

“Do you intend to dismount once you reach the enemy?”

“Sleep would have done much for your mind's cast, old man.”

Point taken, bastard
.

Duiker wandered away. He'd always hated the hours before a battle. None of the rituals of preparation had ever worked for him. A check of weapons and gear rarely took an experienced soldier more than twenty heartbeats. The historian had never been able to repeat that check mindlessly, again and again, as did so many soldiers. Keeping the hands busy while the mind slowly slid into a sharp-edged world of saturated colors, painful clarity and a kind of lustful hunger that seized body and soul.

Some warriors ready themselves to live, some ready themselves to die, and in these hours before the fate unfolds, it's damned hard to tell one from the other. The lad Temul's dance a moment ago might be his last. That damned sword may never again leap from its sheath and sing on the end of his hand
.

The sky was lightening in the east, the cool wind beginning to warm. The vast dome overhead was cloudless. A formation of birds flew high to the north, the pattern of specks almost motionless.

The Wickan camp behind him, Duiker entered the regimental rows of tents that marked the Seventh. The various elements maintained their cohesion in the encampment's layout, and each was clearly identifiable to the historian. The medium infantry, who formed the bulk of the army, were arranged by company, each company consisting of cohorts that were in turn made up of squads. They would go into battle with full-body shields of bronze, pikes and short swords. They wore bronze scale hauberks, greaves and gauntlets, and bronze helmets reinforced with iron bars wrapped in a cage around the skullcap. Chain camails protected their necks and shoulders. The other footmen consisted of marines and sappers, the former a combination of heavy infantry and shock troops—the old Emperor's invention and still unique to the Empire. They were armed with crossbows and short swords as well as long swords. They wore blackened chain beneath gray leathers. Every third soldier carried a large, round shield of thick, soft wood that would be soaked for an hour before battle. These shields were used to catch and hold enemy weapons ranging from swords to flails. They would be discarded after the first few minutes of a fight, usually studded with an appalling array of edged and spiked iron. This peculiar tactic of the Seventh had proved effective against the Semk and their undisciplined, two-handed fighting methods. The marines called it
pulling teeth
.

The sappers' encampment was set somewhat apart from the others—as far away as possible when they carried Moranth munitions. Though he looked, Duiker could not see its location, but he knew well what he'd find.
Look for the most disordered collection of tents and foul-smelling vapors aswarm with mosquitoes and gnats and you'll have found Malazan Engineers. And in that quarter you'll find soldiers shaking like leaves, with splash-burn pockmarks, singed hair and a dark, manic gleam in their eyes
.

Corporal List stood with Captain Lull at one end of the Marine encampment, close to the attachment of loyal Hissari Guards—whose soldiers were readying their tulwars and round shields in grim silence. Coltaine held them in absolute trust, and the Seven Cities natives had proved themselves again and again with fanatic ferocity—as if they had assumed a burden of shame and guilt and could only relieve it by slaughtering every one of their traitorous kin.

Captain Lull smiled as the historian joined them. “Got a cloth for your face? We'll be eating dust today, old man, in plenty.”

“We will be the back end of the wedge, sir,” List said, looking none too pleased.

“I'd rather swallow dust than a yard of cold iron,” Duiker said. “Do we know what we're facing yet, Lull?”

“That's ‘Captain' to you.”

“As soon as you stop calling me ‘old man,' I'll start calling you by your rank.”

“I was jesting, Duiker,” Lull said. “Call me what you like, and that includes pig-headed bastard if it pleases you.”

“It just might.”

Lull's face twisted sourly. “Didn't get any sleep, did you?” He swung to List. “If the old codger starts nodding off, you've my permission to give him a clout on that bashed-up helmet of his, Corporal.”

“If I can stay awake myself, sir. This good cheer is wearing me out.”

Lull grimaced at Duiker. “The lad's showing spark these days.”

“Isn't he just.”

The sun was burning clear of the horizon. Pale-winged birds flitted over the humped hills to the north. Duiker glanced down at his boots. The morning dew had seeped through the worn leather. Strands of snagged spiderwebs made a stretched, glittering pattern over the toes. He found it unaccountably beautiful.
Gossamer webs…intricate traps. Yet it was my thoughtless passage that left the night's work undone. Will the spiders go hungry this day because of it?

“Shouldn't dwell on what's to come,” Lull said.

Duiker smiled, looked up at the sky. “What's the order?”

“The Seventh's marines are the spear's point. Crow riders to either side are the flanking barbs. Foolish Dog—now a Togg-thundering heavy cavalry—are the weight behind the marines. Then come the wounded, protected on all sides by the Seventh's infantry. Taking up the tail are the Hissari Loyals and the Seventh's cavalry.”

Duiker was slow to react, then he blinked and faced the captain.

Lull nodded. “The refugees and herds are being held back, this side of the valley but slightly south, on a low shelf of land the maps call the Shallows, with a ridge of hills south of that. The Weasel Clan guards them. It's the safest thing to do—that clan's turned dark and nasty since Sekala. Their horsewarriors have all filed their teeth, if you can believe that.”

“We go to this battle unencumbered,” the historian said.

“Excepting the wounded, aye.”

Captains Sulmar and Chenned emerged from the infantry encampment. Sulmar's posture and expression radiated outrage, Chenned's was mocking if slightly bemused.