‘We shall see. Now, you are keeping up with your journal of the campaign?’
‘Yes, Master.’
‘Very good. You will see to it that my fall shall be glorious, yes?’
U-Pre struggled to keep his face straight. He appeared torn between anxiety and mirth. ‘Yes, Master. Should you fall it shall be most glorious. Yet you will not fall. You shall succeed — gloriously.’
Golan allowed himself a look of bright surprise. ‘Well, then. It would appear we can turn round now as I am assured of glory in either case.’ He cuffed U-Pre’s shoulder. ‘Remember this — the truth of what really happens anywhere at any time can never be retrieved or known. All that matters are the reviews.’ And he walked off, hands clasped behind his back, leaving behind a rather perplexed U-Pre rubbing a thumb over the smooth night-black wood of the Thaumaturg Rod of Execution.
Forward of the ordered ranks of troops, Golan found a thin skirmish line of their allied Isturé. He approached the nearest, a female in layered leathers, stained crimson, that descended to her muddy armoured feet. Each engraved leather scale was edged in bronze and studded in blackened iron. Her long strikingly red hair was piled high upon her head and pinned there by a series of gleaming opalescent shell clasps. He would have thought her quite beautiful but for the many inevitable scars of a lifetime of campaigning that marred her face. That, her unseemly muscular build, and the two longswords hanging from her belts. ‘You are …?’ he asked.
The woman inclined her head in only the most minimal acknowledgement. ‘They call me Jacinth.’ And she added, after a long pause, ‘M’lord.’
‘And where is your commander?’
‘Still absent.’
‘I see. Dare we expect the privilege of his attendance any time soon?’
The foreign woman blinked her utter disinterest. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Perhaps he has fallen to one of these creatures.’
An amused half-smile lifted an edge of the woman’s lips and she turned her gaze to the field of bobbing white flowers. ‘If you think that, then you know nothing of him. There is nothing that walks this world that can defeat him.’
Absurd claim. Yet the reasons behind such a delusion might be mildly interesting. ‘So he fears nothing?’
‘Oh, he fears plenty. There was one blade he was wary of — but it has since been destroyed.’
Ah, well. All creation feared that sword. Golan tilted his head to the field beyond. ‘What think you of this manifestation?’
‘I’m … suspicious.’
‘Commendable. You and your fellow Isturé shall maintain this cordon. I have elected to have a look.’
‘Of course you will.’
Golan frowned; he was not used to such a disrespectful tone. ‘What do you mean — of course I will?’
The woman’s smile deepened as if she were actually enjoying his discomfiture. Eyes still studying the field, she explained: ‘You are a trained Thaumaturg of the highest rank. Where I am from your title would be High Mage and it would be your job to investigate such things to make certain they are safe for the soldiers to advance.’
Golan cocked a brow. How curious. ‘Well, Isturé. We are civilized here. And that is completely backwards.’ Giving the woman an ironic bow of farewell, he started forward.
‘Yet here you are,’ she called after him.
He did not pause. ‘In case you have not yet noticed — time is pressing.’ Ignorant foreigner.
The glade, he found, was a welcome change from the dark gloom of the surrounding jungle. It was in fact quite pleasant. As pleasant as it is possible for any unwelcome delay to be. If he was not mistaken, a slight breath of air actually touched him here in the open. The fat carpet of creamy blossoms bobbed and nodded heavily, brushing his shins. A dusting of their golden pollen now coated his sandals and feet. As he climbed the slight rise he saw that what appeared a mere glade was in fact the minor bay of a far larger sea. A veritable pocket prairie, extending in all directions. Ancient lost gods! It would take days to cross this! Still he could see no sign of the advance parties. A broad flat-topped hill covered in the white blossoms beckoned from the distance and he made for it, hoping for a view.
The hilltop commanded a vista proving that, if quite large, the meadow was in truth nothing more than a brief interruption in an eternity of surrounding dark verdant jungle. Here a coughing fit struck and he hacked up a wad of phlegm that he spat aside. Some sort of irritant. The pollen, perhaps. A tiny smear in the undifferentiated creamy fields caught his eye. Just one last check, then return. The parties must have continued on.
Something turned under his foot — the ground had been quite uneven — and he paused to brush aside the obscuring flowers. It took a moment for him to apprehend what he had stood on and when the realization did snap into place Golan flinched backwards as if stabbed. An animal corpse. He stood on the skeletal corpse of some sort of beast. Yet all he could smell was the sickly-sweet scent of the flowers.
And they grew so thick he could see nothing of the ground …
A terrible suspicion took hold of Golan’s stomach. He kicked at the ground, pushing aside the surface layer to reveal yet more bones. Each dusted in a furry layer of … tiny white flowers. Almost frantic now, he knelt, digging. His sweep threw up animal vertebrae and skulls, rotting hides that might have been clothes, a worked stone knife blade, on and on, ever descending.
He sat back, hands on thighs, panting. This entire mound … a heap of unsuspecting victims … a feast for the white flowers …
A phrase came to him then. A mysterious reference from one of the expedition accounts: the White Plague.
He jerked to his feet and the move raised a cloud of the golden pollen that watered his eyes and convulsed him in a fit of coughing. Straightening, wiping the streaming tears, he studied his smeared yellowed hands and sleeves with wonder. And yet I live … His Thaumaturg treatments, of course. Years of small dosings against countless poisons and drugs. His many wards and protections. The surgeries and complete mastery of his metabolism. Somewhere in all that resided the inoculation against these spores or fungus.
Still coughing, he headed down the hillside. Here he found the body of one of the advance scouting parties. The man lay outstretched. Had fallen running, or perhaps staggering. He’d been headed back to the main column. Golan knelt next to the body. The last to fall, perhaps: running to bring the news. Already a dusting of tiny white blossoms covered the corpse, leather armour and all.
Imagine if they’d marched on through. Countless hundreds falling before realization struck. Perhaps a good thousand or more lost here alone. He headed back to the column, rubbing a thumb over the short beard now covering his chin. What were they heading into? This was just the first of who knew how many deadly turns and traps. Was this to be one enormous killing ground?
Short of the jungle’s verge he halted. There in the shade awaited U-Pre, his guards, and several of the Isturé. ‘Come no further!’ he called. He summoned his power. Blue flame burst to life all about him. Golan scorched himself until the pain made him flinch and the mage-fire flickered away. He brushed the burnt stubble from his head and cheeks then slapped the blackened threads and ash from his robes.
This done, he joined U-Pre. The second in command respectfully proffered the baton in both hands. ‘What now?’ he asked.
Golan negligently took the baton then inclined his head back to the clearing. ‘Burn it all …’
* * *
It might be an island they walked; Mara wasn’t certain. In any case, the priest of the Shattered God led them along a coastline of black volcanic rock where young translucent green plants clung to crevasses and depressions. Each appeared suddenly before Mara like an emerald emerging from gritty stone. A rough iron-blue sea pounded the shore in white crests and spray. The sky held drifting tatters of dark clouds, as of the slow angry dispersal of a storm.