Awareness and revelations thickened the prairie air in a manner priests could only dream of for their temples. To fear the gods is to fear death. In places where men and women are dying, the gods no longer stand in the spaces in between. The soothing intercession is gone. They've stepped back, back through the gates, and watch from the other side. Watch and wait.
'We should've gone around,' List muttered.
'Even without that man in need on your horse,' Duiker said, 'I would have insisted we pass through this place, Corporal.'
'I've learned this lesson already,' List replied, a tautness in his tone.
'From your earlier words, I would suggest that the lesson you have learned is different from mine, lad.'
'This place encourages you, Historian?'
'Strengthens, Corporal, though in a cold way, I admit. Never mind the games of Ascendants. This is what we are. The endless struggle laid bare. Gone is the idyllic, the deceit of self-import as well as the false humility of insignificance. Even as we battle wholly personal battles, we are unified. This is the place of level earth, Corporal. That is its lesson, and I wonder if it is an accident that that deluded mob in gold threads must walk in the wake of these wagons.'
'Either way, few revelations have bled back to stain noble sentiments.'
'No? I smelled desperation back there, Corporal.'
List spied a healer and they delivered the servant into the woman's blood-smeared hands.
The sun was low on the horizon directly ahead by the time they reached the Seventh's main camp. The faint smoke from the dung fires hung like gilded gauze over the ordered rows of tents. Off to one side two squads of infantry had set to in a contest of belt-grip, using a leather-strapped skullcap for a ball. A ring of cheering, jeering onlookers had gathered. Laughter rang in the air.
Duiker remembered the words of an old marine from his soldiering days. Some times you just have to grin and spit in Hood's face. The contesting squads were doing just that, running themselves ragged to sneer at their own exhaustion besides, and well aware that Tithansi eyes watched from a distance.
They were a day away from the River P'atha, and the impending battle was a promise that thickened the dusk.
Two of the Seventh's marines flanked Coltaine's command tent, and the historian recognized one of them.
She nodded. 'Historian.'
There was a look in her pale eyes that seemed to lay an invisible hand against his chest, and Duiker was stilled to silence, though he managed a smile.
As they passed between the drawn flaps, List murmured, 'Well now, Historian.'
'Enough of that, Corporal.' But he did not glance over to nail the young man's grin, as he was tempted to do. A man gets to an age where he's wise not to banter on desire with a comrade half his age. Too pathetic by far, that illusion of competition. Besides, that look of hers was likely more pitying than anything else, no matter what my heart whispered. Put an end to your foolish thoughts, old man.
Coltaine stood near the centre pole, his expression dark. Duiker and List's arrival had interrupted a conversation. Bult and Captain Lull sat on saddle-chairs, looking glum. Sormo stood wrapped in an antelope hide, his back to the tent's far wall, his eyes hooded in shadow. The air was sweltering and tense.
Bult cleared his throat. 'Sormo was explaining about the Semk godling,' he said. 'The spirits say something damaged it. Badly. The night of the raid — a demon walked the land. Lightly, I gather, leaving a spoor not easily sniffed out. In any case, it appeared, mauled the Semk, then left. It seems, Historian, that the Claw had company.'
'An Imperial demon?'
Bult shrugged and swung his flat gaze to Sormo.
The warlock, looking like a black vulture perched on a fence pole, stirred slightly. 'There is precedent,' he admitted. 'Yet Nil believes otherwise.'
'Why?' Duiker asked.
There was a long pause before Sormo answered. 'When Nil fled into himself that night. . no, that is, he believed that it was his own mind that sheltered him from the Semk's sorcerous attack..' It was clear that the warlock was in difficulty with his words. 'The Tano Spiritwalkers of this land are said to be able to quest through a hidden world — not a true warren, but a realm where souls are freed of flesh and bone. It seems that Nil stumbled into such a place, and there he came face to face with… someone else. At first he thought it but an aspect of himself, a monstrous reflection-'
'Monstrous?' Duiker asked.
'A boy of Nil's own age, yet with a demonic face. Nil believes it was bonded with the apparition that attacked the Semk. Imperial demons rarely possess human familiars.'
'Then who sent it?'
'Perhaps no-one.'
No wonder Coltaine's had his black feathers ruffled.
After a few minutes Bult sighed loudly, stretching out his gnarled, bandy legs. 'Kamist Reloe has prepared a welcome for us the other side of the River P'atha. We cannot afford to go around him. Therefore we shall go through him.'
'You ride with the marines,' Coltaine told Duiker.
The historian glanced at Captain Lull.
The red-bearded man grinned. 'Seems you've earned a place with the best, old man.'
'Hood's breath! I'll not last five minutes in a line of battle. My heart nearly gave out after a skirmish lasting all of three breaths the other night-'
'We won't be front line,' Lull said. 'There ain't enough of us left for that. If all goes as planned we won't even get our swords nicked.'
'Oh, very well.' Duiker turned to Coltaine. 'Returning the servants to the nobles was a mistake,' he said. 'It seems the noble-born have concluded that you'll not take them away again if they're not fit to stand.'
Bult said, 'They showed spine, those servants, at Sekala Crossing. Just holding shields, mind, but hold is what they did.'
'Uncle, do you still have that scroll demanding compensation?' Coltaine asked.
'Aye.'
'And that compensation was calculated based on the worth of each servant, in coin?'
Bult nodded.
'Collect the servants and pay for them in full, in gold jakatas.'
'Aye, though all that gold will burden the nobles sorely.'
'Better them than us.'
Lull cleared his throat. 'That coin's the soldiers' pay, ain't it?'
'The Empire honours its debts,' Coltaine growled.
It was a statement that promised to grow in resonance in the time to come, and the momentary silence in the tent told Duiker that he was not alone in that recognition.
Capemoths swarmed across the face of the moon. Duiker sat beside the flaked embers of a cooking fire. A nervous energy had driven the historian from his bedroll. On all sides the camp slept, a city exhausted. Even the animals had fallen silent.
Rhizan swept through the warm air above the hearth, plucking hovering insects on the wing. The soft crunch of exoskeletons was a constant crackle.
A dark shape appeared at Duiker's side, lowered itself into a squat, held silent.
After a while, Duiker said, 'A Fist needs his rest.'
Coltaine grunted. 'And a historian?'
'Never rests.'
'We are denied in our needs,' the Wickan said.
'It was ever thus.'
'Historian, you joke like a Wickan.'
'I've made a study of Bult's lack of humour.'
'That much is patently clear.'
There was silence between them for a time. Duiker could make no claim to know the man at his side. If the Fist was plagued by doubts he did not show it, nor, of course, would he. A commander could not reveal his flaws. With Coltaine, however, it was more than his rank dictating his recalcitrance. Even Bult had occasion to mutter that his nephew was a man who isolated himself to levels far beyond the natural Wickan stoicism.