‘Do we defend here?’ Captain Fal-ej asked. Her tone more than made clear her own disenchantment.
K’ess adjusted his seat astride his mount. He’d been too long out of the saddle and his thighs were scraped raw. For a time he eyed the troops marching on to the short causeway. Not enough to make a stand. And Dhavran? This collection of mud and wood huts doesn’t boast one defensible position.
He sipped some water from a skin hung on his saddle then sucked his teeth. At first he’d considered heading west into the Moranth mountains to wait things out there. But then a rider had arrived from Captain Goyan’s contingent: they were moving on. And why? Word had come from the Fifth. Fist Steppen moving north. Rendezvous south of Dhavran.
All very well and good. Altogether they might field close to ten thousand. Every remaining Malazan trooper south of Cat. Enough for him to finally unclench his anxious buttocks for a moment or two.
But before he could allow himself that one moment of relaxation reports arrived from loyal Barghast scouts in the eastward foothills of the Tahlyn range: a large force moving west. Rhivi tribals, apparently. Some three days out and moving far faster than they.
It was a race he knew he wouldn’t win. Thus the hope of contesting the crossing here at Dhavran. And thus his disappointment.
He straightened in his stirrups for a moment to adjust the sweaty leathers beneath his mail skirting. He eyed Fal-ej while she watched the troops march. Her helmet hung from her pommel and she’d wrapped a scarf around her head in the style of her homeland, Seven Cities. A handsome woman. Damned smart. But a touch sharp-edged. Haughty, some of the officers thought her, he knew. But not he. Good wide hips on her too. Fit for throwing out sons, as his ma would’ve said. Woman like that ought to have someone to hold on to.
‘Sir?’ she said. Her gaze had moved to him, questioning.
He cleared his throat. ‘We keep going. Double-time. This place is too wretched.’
She nodded her curt assent, relieved. ‘Yes, Fist.’
K’ess plucked at the gauntlets he held in one hand. ‘Fal-ej …’ he began.
‘Yes, Fist?’ she answered quickly.
He slapped the gauntlets to his armoured thigh. ‘Nothing. It’s not important.’ He waved towards the stream. ‘Keep the sappers on that ramshackle excuse for a bridge. The last thing we need is for it to fall apart under us.’
Fal-ej saluted, kneed her mount into motion. ‘Yes, Fist.’
He watched her go, frowning at himself. Now’s not the time — what with a horde of Rhivi closing in on us. He sighed.
Captain Fal-ej urged her mount down the stream’s oversized channel more savagely than she intended. Remember your priorities, woman, she castigated herself. By the Seven False Gods, what’s gotten into you? Hanging about like a mare in heat. It must be offensive to the man.
She pulled up next to a bridge picket, demanded, ‘Where are the damned saboteurs, trooper?’
The man saluted twice for good measure. He pointed vaguely down towards the stream. ‘Thought I saw them headin’ off that way, Captain, sir …’
Fal-ej yanked the reins over, kneed the mount onward. Has the responsibility of every soldier on his shoulders, woman! Not likely to allow himself to be distracted — and hardly by a figure such as yourself! Calluses on your cheeks from the helmet. Stink of sweat always on you. Arms like some blacksmith’s!
Cresting a grassed sandbar she spotted the crew squatting around a campfire, gutted fish on sticks over the flames. She slapped her mount down towards the stream and pulled up, kicking mud over them. ‘What is this?’
The marine sergeant, a great fat woman, merely peered up unperturbed. ‘Just havin’ a bite, Cap’n.’
‘You were ordered to keep an eye on the bridge.’
‘Bridge is good as beer, Cap’n. Nothin’ there to break. Just big ol’ logs.’
Fal-ej glared down at them. ‘Well … just the same, stay on it! Something might give.’
The sergeant rubbed a large black mole on one cheek, considering. ‘Such as …?’
Fal-ej threw her arms out wide. ‘How in the name of Ehrlitan should I know! I’m not the engineer. Now get going!’
Frowning her agreement, the sergeant motioned to a trooper. ‘Whitey, take your team over.’
‘Aw, c’mon, Sarge. Fish is almost ready.’
The sergeant’s voice took on an edge. ‘Get going … now.’
‘Fine!’ The man straightened to slap dirt off his hide trousers, motioned his team up. The sergeant turned to the captain, cocked a brow and saluted.
Fal-ej answered the salute and yanked her mount round. ‘Thank you, sergeant.’ She rode off kicking up more mud.
‘What’s gotten under her saddle?’ a trooper muttered. ‘Martinet bitch.’
‘Naw,’ the sergeant said as she watched the woman go, a hand shading her gaze. ‘Ain’t nothing a good humping wouldn’t cure.’
‘Sarge!’ one trooper groaned. ‘Do you have to?’
‘That’s your answer for everything,’ another complained.
The sergeant turned, rubbing her hands together. ‘Yes indeed — too bad none of you poor excuses are up to it.’
‘Oh, don’t go on about the damned Moranth. We don’t believe none o’ those stories.’
‘Now don’t go and just kill everyone, okay!’ Yusek snarled over her shoulder as they struggled up the narrow mountain trail.
‘You exaggerate,’ Sall answered calmly.
‘No, I do not fucking exaggerate! Someone raises a cooking ladle your way and you two butcher two hundred! Try to show a little respect. This is some kinda monastery or something.’
‘If they are unarmed they have nothing to fear from us.’
She snorted her scorn. Pausing, she glanced further down to distant Lo making his way up after them. No sign of sweat or labour on either of them! No shortage of breath. Yusek, for her part, felt light-headed and nauseous with the height. Gods. Never been this high before. They say the air is poisonous up here. Kill you as sure as a blade to the heart.
Swallowing to wet her rasping throat she glanced ahead to the monastery walls of heaped cobbles. Tattered prayer flags snapped in the cold wind. White tendrils of smoke blew here and there from cook-fires. Overhead a clear, painfully bright blue sky domed the world. Beautiful, in its way, but for a faint green blemish across its vault — the Scimitar of a god’s vengeance, some named that banner.
A monk, or acolyte, or whatever you would call him, met them at the stone arch that was the compound’s entrance. Yusek took the shaven-headed slim figure for a boy until she spoke, revealing her sex. ‘Enter, please, the adytum. We offer food, shelter, and peace for contemplation to all who would enter.’
‘Adytum?’ Yusek repeated. ‘Is that the place’s name?’
‘The adytum is a location. The most sacred place. The inner shrine of worship for our faith.’
‘What faith is that?’
‘Dessembrae.’ And the woman gestured aside, inviting. Nor did she blink in the face of the two masked Seguleh.
Yusek urged Sall forward. ‘Well? Go on!’
By his hesitation the young man appeared almost embarrassed. ‘There is a proper time for everything,’ he told Yusek aside; then, to the acolyte: ‘Thank you. We would rest. And any hot food you may spare would be welcome.’
The acolyte showed them to a simple hut of piled stone cobbles, almost like a cell. A fire already burned in its small central hearth. Smoke drifted up to the ceiling hole. A black iron pot was heating over the low flames. The young acolyte — no older than I am, Yusek reflected — in her loose shirt over trousers of plain cloth and bare feet, stopped at the threshold. ‘You would prefer separate quarters?’ she asked Yusek, who nodded. ‘This way.’