Sevegg rode beside her cousin, and the others in Raal’s company were the same lackeys who had accompanied him on their visit to the camp of the Wardens. The truth of the rumours was plain to Havaral’s eyes. They were transformed, their skins like alabaster. Still, seeing this miraculous blessing of Light was a shock. They rode with arrogance, with the air of believing themselves privy to dangerous secrets and so worthy of both fear and respect. Like so many soldiers, they were worse than children.
The air tasted bitter, and Havaral struggled not to spit.
In crass announcement of discourtesy or bold contempt, they reined in first, to await his arrival.
The wind was building, cutting down the length of the basin, spinning leaves around the ankles of the horses and making them skittish, and already clouds of mosquitoes lifted up from the grasses to swarm in the shelter of soldier and mount.
As Havaral drew up before them, Sevegg was the first to speak. ‘Ilgast sends an old man to greet us? We can hardly call you a veteran, can we? Wardens are not soldiers. Never were, as you shall soon discover.’
Hunn Raal held up a hand to forestall any further commentary from his cousin. ‘Captain Havaral, isn’t it? Welcome. The morning is chilly, is it not? The kind that settles into your bones.’
And that was meant to soften my resolve? Vitr take me, man, you are not even sober. ‘I bring word from Lord Ilgast Rend,’ Havaral said, fixing his gaze on Raal’s reddened eyes made ghastly against the white skin. ‘He seeks private parley with Lord Vatha Urusander.’
‘I am sorry, then, my friend,’ said Hunn Raal, the secret smile of drunks playing about his thin lips. ‘That is not possible. My commander has instructed me to speak in his stead. That said, I am happy to parley with Lord Rend. Although, I think, not in private. Advisers are useful in such circumstances.’
‘Bodyguards, you mean? Or assassins?’
‘Neither, I am sure,’ Hunn Raal said, with a short easy laugh. ‘It seems your commander esteems his life of greater import than is warranted. Nor am I inclined to feel in any way threatened by his close proximity.’
‘The pride of the highborn,’ Sevegg said, shaking her head as if in disbelief. ‘Wave him down here, captain, and let’s get on with it. Since he would play the soldier again, remind him of our plain ways.’
‘Enough of that, cousin,’ Hunn Raal said. ‘See how this man pales.’
Havaral collected the reins. ‘What you invite upon yourselves on this day, sirs, is a stain of infamy that even your skins cannot hide. May you ever wear it in shame.’ Swinging his mount around, he set off back across the basin.
As they watched him ride away, Sevegg said, ‘Dear cousin, do let me cut him down, I beg you.’
Hunn Raal shook his head. ‘Save the bloodlust, dear. We leave Rend to unleash his rage, thus provoking the battle to come. By this means, cousin, we are absolved of the consequences.’
‘Then I will find that old man on the field, and take his life.’
‘He was no more than a messenger,’ Hunn Raal said.
‘I saw hate in his eyes.’
‘You stung it awake, cousin.’
‘The slur in sending him to us belongs to Lord Ilgast Rend, I’ll grant you. But I see nothing to respect among the Wardens. If only it was Calat Hustain leading them.’
Her cousin snorted. ‘Dear fool, Calat would never have brought them to us in the first place.’
She said nothing for a moment, and then managed a dismissive shrug. ‘We’re saved the march, then.’
‘Yes.’
At Hunn Raal’s lead, they pulled their horses round and set off, back the way they had come. The mosquitoes swept in pursuit, but were soon outdistanced.
* * *
The morning lengthened, gathering its own violence with a sharp, buffeting wind that flattened the grasses on the hill where Renarr stood, a short distance from the other men and women. Behind them, on this island of ill desires, the orphaned children who had, in no official manner, adopted the score or so whores who shared this particular tent ran and laughed and cursed the frenzied insects. Some were building a fire from a few ragged dung-chips, in the hope that the smoke would send the bugs away, but such fuel offered up little in the way of relief. Others lit pipes if they could beg the rustleaf from a favoured whore. Those who could not simply stuffed grass into the bowls. Their wretched coughing triggered gales of piping laughter.
Whores from other tents were appearing along the hilltop, a few shouting insults across the gaps. The rival groups of children began throwing stones at one another. The day’s first blood was drawn when a sharp rock caught a girl on the temple, adding to her facial scars. In fury she charged the boy who had thrown the rock and he fled squealing.
Renarr watched with all the others as boy and girl ran down the slope.
To the right, Hunn Raal had drawn up his own cohort, although the ancient title was misplaced, as each cohort of Urusander’s Legion now comprised a full thousand soldiers. This was the force Raal offered up to the measure of Ilgast Rend and his Wardens, who were arrayed on the valley’s opposite ridgeline. Unseen by the Wardens and their lord, two flanking cohorts waited on the back-slope, with units of lightly armoured cavalry among the foot soldiers.
Along the crest, she could see, pikes were being readied in the six-deep line behind Hunn Raal and his officers, and she understood such weapons to be the best suited when facing cavalry. A few hundred skirmishers were moving down the slope, armed with javelins. Some of these shouted now at the two children, warning them off, but neither reacted, and the girl’s long legs were closing the gap between her and the smaller boy, whose laughter was gone, and who ran in earnest.
Renarr could see how the blood now covered one half of the girl’s face.
The boy made a sharp turn moments before she reached him, rushing out towards the distant enemy.
Catching up again, the girl pushed with both arms, sending the boy tumbling. He rolled and sought to regain his feet but she was quicker, driving him down with her knees, and only now did Renarr see the large rock in her right hand.
The shouts from the skirmishers fell away, as the girl brought the stone down on the boy’s head, again and again. The waving arms and kicking legs of the boy flopped out to the sides and did not move as the girl continued driving the rock down.
‘Pay up, Srilla!’ cried one of the whores. ‘I took your wager, so pay up!’
Renarr pulled her robe tighter about herself. She saw a skirmisher move nearer the girl, and say something to her. When it was clear that she was not hearing his words, he edged closer and cuffed the side of her head. Dropping his javelin, he grasped the girl’s arms and forced the bloodied stone from her small hands. Then he shoved her away.
She stumbled off, looking up and seeing, as if for the first time, where her hunt had taken her. Once again her long legs flashed as she ran back towards her hill, but she ran as one drunk on wine.
The body of the boy was small and bedraggled, spreadeagled like the remnant of some grisly sacrifice, and the skirmishers gave it a wide berth as they advanced.
‘Now that’s the way to start a war!’ the whore cried, holding up a fist clutching her winnings.
* * *
The captains and their messengers clustered around Lord Ilgast Rend. For all that the nobleborn commander looked solid, heavy in his well-worn armour and bearing a visage betraying nothing but confidence as he sat astride his warhorse, Havaral fought against a cold dread. There was a hollow pit in his gut that no bravado could fill.