CHAPTER V
The natives of this land are difficult and obstinate in the extreme. Those we capture to serve as our bearers are sullen and lazy workers at best. Some deliberately sabotage the columns by dropping their loads into streams or over cliffs. I was forced to kill a great number of them before they learned to cooperate and understand the benefits of friendship with civilized people.
Golan did not mention to his superiors that the great meandering beast that was the invasion force, with all its supporting trains of baggage pulled by oxen and carried on the backs of groaning labourers, together with the wagons of the field surgeries, the smithies, the various messes, and the well-ordered miscellaneous supplies of tents and shovels and whatnot, was well behind schedule. The landscape they were entering descended away from the broken jagged peaks of rock and caves and deadly sinkholes of the Gangrek Mounts into a soggy maze of dense brush and tangled vines overtopped by a layered canopy that blocked out nearly all light and enclosed everything beneath in a choking miasma of air so thick one could hardly push oneself through it. Nor did it help at all that these conditions were of course faithfully recorded in the memoirs and field diaries from prior expeditions in his possession — those few who returned alive, of course — as it was one thing to read of such an environment and quite another to wake up to it one choking steamy morning after another.
It was, in a word, all so very enervating. And not just physically, though quite sufficiently so. Golan also felt a strange sort of creeping mental and spiritual malaise. Even the most mundane and fundamental of tasks became tiresome, even somehow unnecessary. Some days ago, for example, he had run a hand over his normally cleanly shaven pate and cheeks to find an unseemly stubble. A rather shocking slip of standards that he could not quite recall having allowed.
Yet such outward fleshly betrayals were as nothing compared to the disturbing dreaminess he sometimes found himself slipping into while enduring the mind-numbing monotony of the march, bobbing from side to side in his litter. Odd musings came to him as his mind drifted unmoored, as it were, within this ocean of green. Why all these strivings, he wondered? To what end? Surely his masters could do nothing with so unpromising a wasteland. Even if it were all burned to the ground it would take generations to squeeze even the least profit from it. And even if they succeeded in ousting Ardata and replacing her with a tame figurehead, either drawn from among these foreigners, or another, what then? The character of this land had escaped them for generations. What were they trying to accomplish?
Come to think of it, he could not recall one single instance of the Queen of Monsters invading their territory. It was not as if she was an inimical neighbour. It was just that this huge expanse ought to be ruled by someone who would do something productive with it instead of leaving it to run wild, home to sports and oddities that never amounted to anything.
Golan’s wandering thoughts latched on to this familiar line of logic out of his days at the Academy. He could even remember the circumstances: he and his fellow apprentices walking the carefully manicured gardens of the school following the lean stick-figure of Master Legem as he held forth. Utility. Order. Service. Following such a rationale one could argue that these jungle leagues were in truth without any prior claim whatsoever. This so-called ‘Queen’, in her negligence and inattention, hardly counted as in possession in any practical sense at all. These lands lay unspoken for, virgin, open to seizure by responsible conscientious stewards.
‘And make no mistake,’ ferocious Master Legem announced, turning upon them one crooked accusing finger. ‘We are this responsible party. And not through any self-serving myth of divine ordination or selection. We are this party because we alone are conscientious enough to reach out and act in this capacity. We have stemmed countless threats to the wider order. All without recognition or reward! For such frivolities are not our goal. Our goal is order. The ordering of the world. And the taming of the threats to that order. That is our calling.’
Rocking in his litter, Golan pulled his sodden shirt from his sweaty chest and sighed. Yes, all very laudable and noble. Why then these misgivings? His mission was, in a sense, heroic. Bringing order, light and rationalism to where only darkness, ignorance and superstition ruled. Really, if there was any justice in the world he ought to be given a medal when all this was over and done.
Snorting, Golan hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and spat it to the ground. But of course, as Master Legem constantly reminded him and his fellow aspirants, anything so juvenile as honours or rewards were beneath them. The Circle of Masters strove not for personal gain but for the betterment of the human condition. Their work was for the common good. These doubts and odd misgivings that came wafting in this sickly miasma were therefore unworthy; an insult to generations of selfless labour.
He must work harder to find the proper state of right-thinking.
Chief of Staff U-Pre appeared next to his litter, saluted with fingertips pressed to forehead then swept down. Golan nodded in answer to the salute. ‘Yes, Second in Command?’
The man’s face shone with sweat; it ran in streams from under his stained leather helmet. His face was ghostly pale as well, as if he were struggling against exhaustion, or constant pain. ‘Trouble at the van, Master. I’ve ordered a temporary halt.’
Golan cocked his head to listen but heard nothing beyond the surrounding crash of the march. Shortly, however, the litter swayed as his yakshaka bearers stopped. The noise lessened, but only slightly as bearers coughed and hawked, oxen lowed, and overseers shouted orders. ‘What sort of trouble?’ he enquired mildly.
U-Pre gestured, inviting him onward. Golan ordered his bearers forward once again. They carried him alongside the main column.
‘We have come to a wide clearing, Master,’ U-Pre explained as he walked. ‘A meadow, I imagine you might call it. Full of rather pretty white flowers. I ordered a party ahead to scout. They did not return. I then ordered a second group … they too have not returned.’
Golan nodded his approval. ‘I see. Your caution is commendable. However, must I remind you that we are behind schedule?’
U-Pre bowed his head at this rebuke. ‘I understand, Master.’
His bearers brought him to the front where soldiers had formed line facing the startlingly bright opening in the canopy. Golan shaded his gaze to squint between the last screen of trees to the expanse of a huge clearing floored, as his second reported, by a seeming ocean of creamy-white blossoms.
‘Were they attacked?’ he asked U-Pre. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘We saw nothing. Both parties advanced out of sight. The meadow climbs, as you see. It appears to be higher ground. Excellent position for an encampment.’
‘Perhaps.’ Golan tapped the blackwood baton to his chin. ‘You were right to order the halt, Second in Command. Something is not right. I shall have a look.’
‘Master, you mustn’t …’
‘Down!’ The yakshaka knelt. Golan stepped out only to wince and knead his numb legs. ‘You presume to tell me what I may or may not do, Second?’
U-Pre appeared stricken. ‘No, Master! Not at all … We merely daren’t risk losing you.’
‘Ah! I see.’ He extended the Rod of Execution to U-Pre, who stared at it in disbelief before reluctantly raising a hand to take it. ‘Is it not for such strange manifestations that I was sent? Should I not return, report my failure.’
‘Yes, Master. That is, no, Master. You shall return.’