Only two kinds of people die in battle, Fiddler had once said, fools and the unlucky. Trading blows with a demon was both unlucky and foolish.
For all that, the aptorian grated strangely on Kalam's eyes, like an iron blade trying to cut granite. Even to focus too long on the beast was to invite a wave of nausea.
There was nothing welcome in Sha'ik's gift. Gift … or spy. She's unleashed the Whirlwind and now the goddess rides her, as certain as possession. That's likely to trim short the wick of gratitude. Besides, even Dryjhna would not so readily waste an aptorian demon on something so mundane as escort. So, friend Apt, I cannot trust you.
Over the past few days he'd tried losing the beast, departing camp silently an hour before dawn, plunging into the thickest twists of spinning wind. Outracing the creature was a hopeless task—it could outpace any earthly animal in both speed and endurance, and for all his efforts Apt held on to him like a well-heeled hound—although mercifully at a distance.
The wind scoured the rock-scabbed hills with a voracious fury, carving into cracks and fissures as if hungering to spring loose every last speck of sand. The smooth, humped domes of bleached limestone lining the ridges on either side of the shallow valley he rode along seemed to age before his eyes, revealing countless wrinkles and scars.
He'd left the Pan'potsun Hills behind six days earlier, crossing the seamless border into another sawbacked ridge of hills called the Anibaj. The territory this far south of Raraku was less familiar to him. He'd come close on occasion, following the well-travelled trader tracks skirting the eastern edge of the range. The Anibaj were home to no tribes, although hidden monasteries were rumoured to exist.
The Whirlwind had rolled out of Raraku the night before, a star-blotting tidal wave of sorcery that left Kalam shaken despite his anticipating its imminent arrival. Dryjhna had awakened with a hunger fierce enough to render the assassin appalled. He feared he would come to regret his role, and every sighting of Apt only deepened that fear.
The Anibaj were lifeless to Kalam's eyes. He'd seen no sign of habitation, disguised or otherwise. The occasional stronghold ruin hinted at a more crowded past, but that was all. If ascetic monks and nuns hid in these wastelands, the blessing of their deities kept them from mortal eyes.
And yet, as he rode hunched on his saddle, the wind pummelling his back, Kalam could not shake the sense that something was trailing him. The awareness had risen within him over the past six hours. A presence was out there—human or beast—beyond the range of his sight, following, somehow clinging to his trail. He knew his and his horse's scent only preceded them, driven south on the wind, and no doubt swiftly tattered apart before it had gone ten paces. Nor did any tracks his horse left last much beyond a few seconds. Unless the hunter's vision was superior to the assassin's—which he did not think likely—so that he was able to stay just beyond Kalam's own range, the only explanation he was left with was… Hood-spawned sorcery. The last thing I need.
He glared to the left again and could make out Apt's vast shape, its strangely mechanical flow as it kept pace with him. The demon showed no alarm—mind you, how could one tell?— but rather than drawing comfort from it he felt instead a growing unease, a suspicion that the demon's role no longer included protecting him.
Abruptly the wind fell, the roar shifting to the hiss of settling sand. Grunting in surprise, Kalam reined in and looked back over his shoulder. The storm's edge was a tumbling, stationary wall five paces behind him. Sand rained from it forming scalloped dunes along a slightly curving edge that ran to the horizon's edge both east and west. Overhead the sky had lightened to a faintly burnished copper. The sun, hanging an hour above the western horizon, was the colour of beaten gold. The assassin walked his horse on another dozen paces, then halted a second time. Apt had not emerged from the storm. A shiver of alarm took hold and he reached for the crossbow hanging from its strap on the saddlehorn.
A jolt of sudden panic took his horse and the beast shied sideways, head lifted and ears flattened. A strong, spicy smell filled the air. Kalam rolled from the saddle even as something passed swiftly through the air over him. Relinquishing his grip on the unloaded crossbow, the assassin unsheathed both long-knives even as his right shoulder struck the soft sand, his momentum taking him over and onto his feet in a low crouch. His attacker—a desert wolf of startling mass—had failed in clearing the sidestepping horse and was now scrambling for purchase athwart the saddle, its amber eyes fixed on Kalam.
The assassin lunged forward, thrusting with the narrow blade in his right hand. Another wolf struck him from the left, a writhing weight of thick muscle and snapping jaws, taking him to the ground. His left arm was pinned by the beast's weight. Long canines gouged into the mail links covering his shoulder. Rings popped and snapped, the teeth breaking through and pushing hard against his flesh.
Kalam reached around and drove the point of his right long-knife high into the animal's flank, the blade slipping under the spine just fore of the wolf's hip. The tightening jaws released his shoulder; jerking back, the animal kicked to pull away from him. As the assassin struggled to pull the blade free, he felt the edge bite bone. The Aren steel bent, then snapped.
Howling in pain, the wolf leapt away, back hunched, spinning as if chasing its tail in an effort to close its jaws on the jutting fragment of blade.
Spitting sand, Kalam rolled to his feet. The first wolf had been thrown from its purchase across the saddle by the horse's frenzied bucking. It had then taken a solid kick to the side of the head. The beast stood dazed half a dozen paces away, blood running from its nose.
There were others, somewhere behind the storm wall, their growls, yips and snarls muted by the wind. They battled something, it was obvious. Kalam recalled Sha'ik's mention of a D'ivers that had attacked the aptorian—inconclusively—some weeks earlier. It seemed the shapeshifter was trying again.
The assassin saw his horse bolt away down the trail, southward, bucking as it went. He spun back to the two wolves, only to find them gone, twin spattered paths of blood leading back to the storm. From within the Whirlwind all sounds of battle had ceased.
A moment later, Apt lumbered into view. Dark blood streamed from its flanks and dripped from its needle fangs, making the grin of its jawline all the more ghastly. It swung its elongated head and regarded Kalam with its black, knowing eye.
Kalam scowled. 'I risk enough without this damned feud of yours, Apt.'
The demon clacked its jaws, a snakelike tongue darting out to lick the blood from its teeth. He saw it was trembling—some of the puncture wounds near its neck looked deep.
Sighing, the assassin said, 'Treating you will have to await finding my horse.' He reached for the small canteen at his belt. 'But at the very least I can clean your wounds.' He stepped forward.
The demon flinched back, head ducking menacingly.
Kalam stopped. 'Perhaps not, then.' He frowned. There was something odd about the demon, standing on a low hump of bleached bedrock, its head turned as its slitted nostrils flared to test the air. The assassin's frown deepened. Something… After a long moment, he sighed, glancing down at the grip of the broken long-knife in his right hand. He'd carried the matched pair for most of his adult life, like a mirror to the twin loyalties within him. Which of the two have I now lost?
He brushed dust from his telaba, collected his crossbow, slinging it over a shoulder, then began the walk southward, down the trail towards the distant basin. Alongside him, and closer now, Apt followed, head sunk low, its single forelimb kicking up puffs of dust that glowed pink in the sun's failing light.
Chapter Seven
Death shall be my bridge.
Toblakai saying
Burning wagons, the bodies of horses, oxen, mules, men, women and children, pieces of furniture, clothing and other household items lay scattered on the plain south of Hissar, for as far as Duiker could see. Here and there mounds of bodies rose like earthless barrows, where warriors had made a last, desperate stand. Ther
e'd been no mercy to the killing, no prisoners taken.
The sergeant stood a few paces in front of the historian, as silent as his men as he took in the scene that was the Vin'til Basin and the battle that would become known for the village less than a league distant, Bat'rol.
Duiker leaned in his saddle and spat. 'The wounded beast had fangs,' he said sourly. Oh, well done, Coltaine! They'll hesitate long before closing with you again. The bodies were Hissari—even children had been flung into the fighting. Black, scorched scars crossed the battlefield as if a god's claws had swept down to join the slaughter. Pieces of burned meat clogged the scars—human or beast, there was no means of telling. Capemoths fluttered like silent madness over the scene. The air stank of sorcery, the clash of warrens had spread greasy ash over everything. The historian felt beyond horror, his heart hardened enough to feel only relief.
Somewhere to the southwest was the Seventh, remnants of loyal Hissari auxiliaries, and the Wickans. And tens of thousands of Malazan refugees, bereft of their belongings… but alive. The peril remained. Already, the army of the Apocalypse had begun regrouping—shattered survivors contracting singly and in small groups towards the Meila Oasis where awaited the Sialk reinforcements and latecoming desert tribes. When they renewed the pursuit, they would still vastly outnumber Coltaine's battered army.
One of the sergeant's men returned from his scouting to the west. 'Kamist Reloe lives,' he announced. 'Another High Mage brings a new army from the north. There will be no mistakes next time.'
The words were less reassuring to the others than they would have been a day ago. The sergeant's mouth was a thin slash as he nodded. 'We join the others at Meila, then.'
'Not I,' Duiker growled.
Eyes narrowed on him.
'Not yet,' the historian added, scanning the battlefield. 'My heart tells me I shall find the body of my nephew… out there.'
'Seek first among the survivors,' one soldier said.
'No. My heart does not feel fear, only certainty. Go on. I shall join you before dusk.' He swung a hard, challenging gaze to the sergeant. 'Go.'
The man gestured mutely.
Duiker watched them stride westward, knowing that should he see them again, it would be from the ranks of the Malazan army. And somehow they would be less than human then. The game the mind must play to unleash destruction. He'd stood amidst the ranks more than once, sensing the soldiers alongside him seeking and finding that place in the mind, cold and silent, the place where husbands, fathers, wives and mothers became killers. And practice made it easier, each time. Until it becomes a place you never leave.
The historian rode out into the battlefield, almost desperate to rejoin the army. It was not a time to be alone, in the heart of slaughter, where every piece of wreckage or burnt and torn flesh seemed to cry out silent outrage. Sites of battle held on to a madness, as if the blood that had soaked into the soil remembered pain and terror and held locked within it the echoes of screams and death cries.
There were no looters, naught but flies, capemoths, rhizan and wasps—Hood's myriad sprites, wings fanning and buzzing in the air around him as he rode onward. Half a mile ahead a pair of riders galloped across the south ridge, heading west, their telaban whipping twisted and wild behind them.
They had passed out of his sight by the time Duiker reached the low ridge. Before him the dusty ground was rutted and churned. The column that had departed the battlesite had done so in an orderly fashion, though its width suggested that the train was huge. Nine, ten wagons abreast. Cattle. Spare mounts… Queen of Dreams! How can Coltaine hope to defend all this? Two score thousand refugees, perhaps more, all demanding a wall of soldiers protecting their precious selves—even Dassem Ultor would have balked at this.
Far to the east the sky was smeared ruddy brown. Like Hissar, Sialk was aflame. But there had only been a small Marine garrison in that city, a stronghouse and compound down at the harbour, with its own jetty and three patrol craft. With Oponn's luck they'd made good their withdrawal, though in truth Duiker held little hope in that. More likely they would have sought to protect the Malazan citizens—adding their bodies to the slaughter.
It was simple enough to follow the trail Coltaine's army and the refugees had made, southwestward, inland, into the Sialk Odhan. The nearest city in which they might find succour,
Caron Tepasi, was sixty leagues distant, with the hostile clans of the Tithan occupying the steppes in between. And Kamist Reloe's Apocalypse in pursuit. Duiker knew he might rejoin the army only to die with them.
Nevertheless, the rebellion might well have been crushed elsewhere. There was a Fist in Caron Tepasi, another in Guran. If either or both had succeeded in extinguishing the uprising in their cities, then a feasible destination was available to Coltaine. Such a journey across the Odhan, however, would take months. While there was plenty of grazing land for the livestock, there were few sources of water, and the dry season had just begun. No, even to contemplate such a journey is beyond desperation. It is madness.
That left… counterattack. A swift, deadly thrust, retaking Hissar. Or Sialk. A destroyed city offered more opportunity for defence than did steppe land. Moreover, the Malazan fleet could then relieve them—Pormqual might be a fool, but Admiral Nok is anything but. The 7th Army could not be simply abandoned, for without it any hope of quickly ending the rebellion was lost.
For the moment, however, it was clear that Coltaine was leading his column to Dryj Spring, and despite the headstart, Duiker expected to rejoin him well before then. The foremost need for the Malazans now was water. Kamist Reloe would know this as well. He had Coltaine trapped into predictability, a position no commander desired. The fewer choices the Fist possessed, the more dire was the situation.
He rode on. The sun slowly angled westward as he continued following the detritus-strewn trail, its mindless regard making Duiker feel insignificant, his hopes and fears meaningless. The occasional body of a refugee or soldier who had died of wounds lay on the trackside, dumped without ceremony. The sun had swelled their corpses, turning the skin deep red and mottled black. Leaving such unburied bodies in their wake would have been a difficult thing to do. Duiker sensed something of the desperation in that beleaguered force.
An hour before dusk a dust cloud appeared a half-league inland. Tithan horsewarriors, the historian guessed, riding hard towards Dryj Spring. There would be no peace for Coltaine and his people. Lightning raids on horseback would harry the encampment's pickets; sudden drives to peel away livestock, flaming arrows sent into the refugee wagons… a night of unceasing terror.
He watched the Tithansi slowly pull ahead, and contemplated forcing his weary mount into a canter. The tribal riders no doubt led spare mounts, however, and the historian would have to kill his horse in the effort to reach Coltaine before them. And then he could do naught but warn of the inevitable. Besides, Coltaine must know what's coming. He knows, because he once rode as a renegade chieftain, once harried a retreating Imperial army across the Wickan plains.
He continued on at a steady trot, thinking about the challenge of the night ahead: the ride through enemy lines, the unheralded approach to the Seventh's nerve-frayed pickets. The more he thought on it, the less likely seemed his chances of surviving to see the dawn.
The red sky darkened with that desert suddenness, suffusing the air with the colour of drying blood. Moments before he lost the last of the light, Duiker chanced to glance behind him. He saw a grainy cloud, visibly expanding as it swept southward. It seemed to glitter with a hundred thousand pale reflections, as if a wind was flipping the underside of birch leaves at the edge of a vast forest. Capemoths, surely in their millions, leaving Hissar behind, flying to the scent of blood.
He told himself that it was a mindless hunger that drove them. He told himself that the blots, stains and smudges in that billowing, sky-filling cloud were only by chance finding the shape of a face. Hood, after all, had no need to manifest his presence. Nor was he known as a melodramatic g
od—the Lord of Death was reputed to be, if anything, ironically modest. Duiker's imaginings were the product of fear, the all too human need to conjure symbolic meaning from meaningless events. Nothing more.
Duiker kicked his horse into a canter, eyes fixed once more on the growing darkness ahead.
From the crest of the low rise, Felisin watched the seething floor of the basin. It was as if insanity's grip had swept out, from the cities, from the minds of men and women, to stain the natural world. With the approach of dusk, as she and her two companions prepared to break camp for the night's walk, the basin's sand had begun to shiver like the patter of rain on a lake. Beetles began emerging, each black and as large as Baudin's thumb, crawling in a glittering tide that soon filled the entire sweep of desert before them. In their thousands, then hundreds of thousands, yet moving as one, with a singular purpose. Heboric, ever the scholar, had gone off to determine their destination. She had watched him skirt the far edge of the insect army, then vanish beyond the next ridge.
Twenty minutes had passed since then.
Crouching beside her was Baudin, his forearms resting on the large backpack, squinting to pierce the deepening gloom. She sensed his growing unease but had decided that she would not be the one to give voice to their shared concern. There were times when she wondered at Heboric's grasp of what mattered over what didn't. She wondered if the old man was, in fact, a liability.