Kyle limped to the blade, took it up. He raised his gaze to meet Lyan’s staring, wide eyes. Grimacing, he picked up the sheath and hid the blade within, holding it edge down. He wrapped it in a leather belt. ‘Can’t leave them here,’ he said.
‘There’s a pit over there.’
He nodded. ‘I will head east tomorrow.’
Lyan hesitated, cleaned her blade on Neese’s leathers, then bent her head in assent. ‘We will go east tomorrow.’
‘You’re better off-’
‘We’re better off together,’ she cut in, firm.
Kyle chose not to argue the point. There was no way he could stop them from following him if they would. And he was grateful, though twice as worried now. There was no way he would see them killed because of him. He studied the bodies. ‘We should take their gear.’
They journeyed east for three days without catching sight of another human being. On the third day Kyle found his attention wandering to his travelling companions. Dorrin kept up as they jogged through the days until loosing their breath, walked for a time to recover, then set off once more. Kyle had shouldered the other pack and so the lad ran unencumbered. Kyle hoped this was the main reason Dorrin could keep up. Not that he was getting old.
The boy also did exactly as Lyan told him. All without complaint, or face-making, or rebellion, and this struck Kyle as unlike any brother-sister relationship he’d ever heard of. He wondered whether they were in fact mother and son. But nothing in their manner reflected that: he saw no gestures of affection from either, no hugs or touches. Their behaviour to one another was in fact very formal, almost businesslike.
This drove him to say to her, as they walked along, and Dorrin was distant for the moment: ‘You are not brother and sister, are you?’
Lyan bristled at first, taking breath to mount a strong objection. But she seemed to reconsider and subsided, shaking her head. ‘No. We are not related.’
‘Yet you are more than just chance survivors. You have been together for some time.’
‘Yes.’
He simply waited, walking in silence until she sighed and waved as if capitulating. ‘I am his guard. The last of his bodyguard.’
Kyle peered over at the blond-haired lad where he walked, his shirt dark with sweat, swishing a stick through the tall grasses as he went. ‘He is of noble blood?’
‘Yes.’
‘From north Genabackis?’
Again the woman paused, reluctant to continue. Kyle just shrugged. ‘I am from the south of these lands. Bael, it is sometimes called. I haven’t even been to Genabackis.’
Lyan sighed again, accepting this. ‘Well — you have heard that the fighting in the north-east of the continent was far more savage than the west?’ Kyle nodded; he had heard. ‘There were … powers there,’ she continued, ‘that the Malazans only overcame with great difficulty.’
‘Caladan Brood commanded the Free City armies of the north.’
‘That was later,’ she said. ‘There was no alliance of “Free Cities” before the Malazans arrived. Only competing city-states and personalities. One of the most powerful cities was Anklos. Its ruling family — the Batarius family — was the one that originally hired Caladan. They were the ancestral rulers of Anklos until the Malazans forced them out and they fled into exile.’
Kyle felt his brows rising higher and higher. ‘Are you saying that Dorrin …’
Lyan jerked her head in assent. ‘With the death of his father he is now king in exile, rightful ruler of Anklos.’
‘Then … may I ask — why here? Why in the name of the Sky-King are you here?’
Lyan gave a long troubled breath. ‘I advised against it. But his father insisted. You see, word had come of gold in Assail. Rivers of gold.’ She eyed him sidelong. ‘Do you have any idea how much gold it takes to mount a rebellion? To build an army? A very great amount indeed.’
Now Kyle was even more troubled. He walked in silence for a time, frowning. ‘And why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because,’ and her gaze was constant upon him now, ‘I have also heard songs of the Malazan campaign in Fist. Of its leader, Greymane, Stonewielder … and of his companion, now known as Whiteblade. Who, I have also heard, abandoned the Malazans with the death of Greymane, his friend. Such a champion would have no use for the empire that used his friend so cruelly, I imagine.’
He lowered his gaze. ‘I walked away from all that. I have no intention of returning.’
‘You will do what you must. In the meantime one can at least keep watch while the other sleeps.’
He gave a stiff nod of acceptance. ‘At the very least.’
Towards the end of the afternoon, as the light darkened to a deep amber, he raised a hand in a halt. Lyan, who had been walking with Dorrin, jogged to him.
‘What is it?’
‘I smell smoke — and worse.’
Her gaze went to Dorrin, who crouched now in cover, as he’d been instructed. ‘I see.’
‘Should I scout ahead?’
She shook a negative. ‘Let us keep together.’
‘Very well.’
They advanced warily. Lyan hovered close to Dorrin, sword out. Kyle scanned the hillsides. In time, he spotted the source: a long patch of flattened and disturbed grass stretching between hills. They passed outliers of the attack: a burst wooden chest, spilled trampled clothes. A child’s rag doll. The smouldering remains of a two-wheeled ox cart. Staked out amid the wreckage lay bodies, and seeing this, Lyan steered Dorrin aside. Kyle approached.
They had been left alive but had had their skin flayed from their bodies. Eyes gouged out, hands hacked off. Incredibly, two still breathed. Kyle crouched next to one: a thing that might have once been an old man. ‘Can you hear me, oldster?’
The head moved as if its owner were searching for the source of the voice. Kyle allowed a few drops of water to fall on to the man’s split and mangled lips. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Alana?’ the oldster whispered hoarsely. ‘Little Gerrol? Reena?’
Kyle had seen no remains of women or children. He did not wonder as to their fate: the clans here were similar enough to his own. Children adopted into the clan; women of childbearing years taken to replenish their numbers.
‘Taken,’ he said.
The man’s head fell back. He moaned long and low — a sort of keening.
‘Old man …’ The fellow did not answer. He now seemed oblivious, lost in his pain. Kyle glanced to the surrounding hillsides: had the clans left scouts? Had they eyes on the remains?
‘Old man!’ The head shifted once more, blindly searching. ‘Why are you here? Why are you trespassing?’
‘For the gold. We came north. Trains of travellers. Heading north … for the gold …’
Kyle straightened. The fools. As if the various clans of the Silent People would allow them to cross their lands. He jogged to where Lyan waited, her hands on Dorrin’s shoulders.
‘Trains of wagons travelling north,’ he explained. ‘It’s a rush to collect this gold of yours.’
She squinted to the south, appalled. ‘The clans are slaughtering them all.’
‘Yes.’ He examined Dorrin, who peered up at him, quite direct in his gaze. ‘You have a weapon?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know how to use it?’
‘The Shieldmaiden is training me.’
He raised his gaze. Well, it seems he was not the only one with secrets. One of the legendary shieldmaidens of north Genabackis. Her lips remained tight and her eyes wary as her thick auburn hair blew about her. ‘Well, lad, here’s another one.’ He handed over one of his extra hatchets. To Lyan he said: ‘We’d best get going.’
She gave a curt nod of agreement.
Two days later the wind again brought hints of smoke. Lyan had the lad kneel in the grass and keep watch as she and Kyle advanced up a hillside. From this rise they could see another hilltop, this one fortified and occupied. Kyle counted more than thirty swords.