These inland valleys and forests they crossed were not entirely empty. Tiny villages huddled here and there. Their inhabitants were a trickle of homesteaders slowly journeying inland and north from the lower, more settled, part of the peninsula. To a man and woman they looked with stunned incomprehension upon the arrival of this pocket army of outlanders.
To Fisher’s relief, Teal was strict in keeping his guard in hand. If they came across a clutch of chickens, not all were taken. Maize cribs were not entirely emptied. Larders were thinned, but not cleaned out. It seemed the Letherii officer was more than familiar with the art of taxing to the very bone — but not beyond. The Malazans under Malle were particularly watchful of the women and girls. It seemed they did not want to leave behind a name synonymous with wholesale rape and murder, and this also Fisher could not fail to note.
Enguf’s Genabackan pirates, however, clung hard to their traditional right to rape, murder, loot and burn. It took the threat of turning upon them from both Teal’s guard and Malle’s veterans to bring it to a stop. Even then, the Letherii and Malazans had to divide their time between scavenging for provisions and guarding the cottages and farms. Enguf’s crew were mutinous, but their captain kept reminding them of the real reward waiting ahead: all the gold they could carry. As it was, Fisher believed a number of the crew members had dropped away as they journeyed inland. Deserted with an eye on plain old-fashioned brigandage, probably.
On the seventh day he found the Cawn mage Holden waiting for him as he slogged past along a forest trail. He stepped out of the column and raised his brows in a question. The mage waved him over, then led him up a thin path through the woods. A cottage built of wattle and daub stood ahead, roofed in straw. The young and rather sour-faced mage of Cat, Alca, was standing with what Fisher presumed was the settler himself, a youngish fellow in tattered shirt and trousers with a defiant look on his lined face.
‘What is it?’ Fisher asked Holden.
‘Intelligence — if you can call it that.’
Fisher nodded a greeting to the farmer, who returned the gesture.
‘Would you care to repeat what you’ve said?’ Alca asked him.
The man nodded, his jaws set. ‘Aye. I’m not afeared.’
Fisher wanted to ask what the man was not afraid of, but decided not to interrupt.
‘You are travelling the Wight Road,’ the farmer said, addressing himself to Fisher. The way was actually more of a path, an old trail that linked passes through the high ridges, but Fisher did not correct him.
‘Yes.’
‘You should turn back.’
Fisher glanced to the mages. Holden’s face held scepticism, even tolerant amusement; Alca was grim, as if she was conducting an interrogation. ‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘Because o’ the Bonewight.’
Fisher nodded. This was the ‘monster’ he’d warned Malle about. It was the ‘lurking threat’ mentioned in the old lays. ‘I know the old stories. All that was long ago.’
The man shook his head. Fisher now saw that he was even younger than he’d thought. The hardscrabble life here in the wilderness had aged him brutally. ‘’Twas and ’twasn’t. It was and it still is. It will come. It wards the way north.’
Now Fisher frowned, struck by something. ‘“Wards”?’ he asked.
‘How do you know this?’ Alca demanded. ‘No one else has said anything.’
The settler shifted his attention to her. He held his chin high, defiant still. ‘They are all afeared o’ the Jotunfiend.’
Holden scowled his impatience. ‘Jotunfiend? You mean a ghoul? A ghostie?’
‘It’s as real as you strange foreigners.’
‘And where is this monster?’ Alca demanded.
‘It waits under its bridge.’
Holden let out a snort and pressed a hand to his forehead. ‘Ogres under bridges …’ He shook his head, looked to Fisher. ‘Never mind. Seems our friend here has heard the same old ghost stories you have.’ He waved Alca off. ‘Let’s go.’
The two mages left to return to the column. Fisher studied the slate-hued overcast sky where it showed between the trees. It looked like rain. He returned his gaze to the settler, who glared back, his jaws set once more. ‘Thank you for the warning,’ he said.
‘It is real,’ the man growled resentfully.
‘Thank you.’ Fisher turned to go.
As he was walking up the trail, the man shouted after him: ‘It took my brother!’
Fisher glanced back but the man had turned away to return to his work, cutting wood. The bard stood for a time, watching, but the man said no more. Fisher returned to the column.
When he fell in with the Malazans once more, Jethiss gave him a questioning look. Fisher gestured ahead, where the ground climbed to another ridge and another high pass. ‘Some sort of possible threat ahead. Something haunting the highlands.’
Jethiss nodded. ‘Ah. I saw your mage friends. They did not appear convinced.’
Fisher chuckled. ‘No. But then, they have not seen what I have seen.’
‘And neither have I, it would seem.’
Fisher studied him, his lined face, his blowing white-streaked hair. ‘I believe you have. You just do not remember it.’
The man gave an easy shrug. ‘Perhaps. Immaterial now. What is gone is gone. How could I miss that which I do not even recall?’
Sidelong, Fisher studied the man. Could he cultivate such an untroubled equanimity if he’d lost all that he’d ever been? He doubted it. It would take a strong and centred spirit to awake into a strange new existence and still keep one’s sanity. Let alone one’s sense of humour, or irony.
He shivered in the cold wind blowing down out of the heights and shaking the trees. Dampness chilled it. A late snowstorm? Would the pass be open? He pulled his travelling cloak tighter about himself. ‘The old songs and stories are consistent on it. There must be something there.’
‘Perhaps they merely reference one another, perpetuating the myth.’
He walked for a time in silence. Ahead, Malle, the old Gris matriarch on her donkey, raised a parasol and opened it. Fisher held out a hand; a few drops struck. A cold rain. And perhaps snow in the upper passes. This late in the season, too. He drew his idum from his back to check its oiled leather wrap. ‘Perhaps,’ he allowed. ‘We shall see.’
That night it snowed. Fisher watched it from the open front of his tent. The fat flakes hissed and melted as they slapped the ground.
He played late into the evening. At times Jethiss stirred, thrashing on his bedding. It was not until Fisher put away the instrument and lay down upon his own Malazan-issued blankets that he realized he’d unconsciously been playing themes from Anomandaris, his epic lay concerning Anomander Rake.
Yelling from somewhere in the camp shocked him awake in the dead of night. He bolted up, pulled on his boots, and ran out of the tent in his leather shirt and trousers. Almost everyone was up and milling about, most running to the perimeter. He spotted Marshal Teal with a bodyguard of four men, jogging for Enguf’s camp, and followed. The pirate commander was shouting and waving to disperse his crew back to their campfires and tents.
Marshal Teal closed upon the captain. ‘What was it?’ he demanded. ‘What happened?’
Enguf was bleeding at the mouth. He wiped away the blood with the back of his hand. ‘Just a difference of opinion regarding this expedition of yours.’
Teal’s brows arched. ‘A difference of opinion? Really.’
‘We were debating its merits.’
‘A debate? Is that what this was? Sounded more like a damned tavern brawl.’
The captain rubbed his jaw. ‘For the Southern Confederacy, this was a debate.’
‘I see. Well, perhaps next time you could conduct your debating in such a manner that you do not alarm the entire camp.’
‘Well perhaps I’ll just table that at the next meeting!’