‘Go.’
She gestured with sudden contempt. ‘Oh, fine, on with you two, then. Later, Karsa, I will remind you of one thing.’
‘What?’
She opened the door behind her. ‘This oaf couldn’t even find your room.’
Out in the corridor, Samar Dev heard a stirring from one of the guards, then a groan and then, distinctly: ‘What are all those lights?’
Chapter Twelve
I looked to the west and saw a thousand suns setting.
The earthy smell of the dung fires preceded the first sighting of the Awl army. Beneath the smudged light of a dull moon, the Atri-Preda and Brohl Handar rode with the scout troop to the base of a ridge, where they dismounted and, leaving one soldier with the horses, set out on foot up the slope.
The summit was almost devoid of grasses, knobs of angular bedrock pushing through where the ceaseless winds had eroded away the scant soil. Dropping down low, the half-dozen Letherii and one Tiste Edur edged up between the outcroppings, filling the spaces in the broken spine of basalt.
Beyond, perhaps a third of a league distant, burned the cookfires of the enemy. A sea of fallen, smouldering stars, spreading out to fill the basin of an entire valley, then up the far slope, defining its contours.
‘How many do you judge?’ Brohl Handar asked the Atri-Preda in a low voice.
Bivatt sighed. ‘Combatants? Maybe ten, eleven thousand. These armies are more like migrations, Overseer. Everyone tags along.’
‘Then where are the herds?’
‘Probably the other side of the far valley.’
‘So tomorrow, we ride to battle.’
‘Yes. And again, I advise that you and your bodyguard remain with the train-’
‘That will not be necessary,’ Brohl Handar cut in, repeating words he had uttered a dozen times in the past three days and nights. ‘There are Edur warriors with you, and they will be used, yes?’
‘If needed, Overseer. But the fight awaiting us looks to be no different from all the others we Letherii have had against these people of the plains. It looks as if Redmask was not able to sway the elders with any new schemes. It’s the old tactics-the ones that fail them time and again.’ She was silent for a moment, then she continued, ‘The valley behind us is called Bast Fulmar. It has some arcane significance for the Awl. That is where we will meet.’
He turned his head and studied her in the gloom. ‘You are content to let them choose the place of battle?’
She snorted. ‘Overseer, if these lands were filled with defiles, canyons, arroyos or impassable rivers-or forests-then indeed I would think carefully about engaging the enemy where they want us to. But not here. Visibility is not in issue-with our mages the Awl cannot hide in any case. There are no difficult avenues of retreat, no blinds. The light tomorrow will be brutal in its simplicity. Awl ferocity anainst Letherii discipline.’
And with this Redmask leading them, they will be fere cious indeed.’
‘Yes. But it will fail in the end.’
‘You are confident, Atri-Preda.’
He caught her smile. ‘Relieved, Overseer. This night, I see only what I have seen a dozen times before. Do not imagine, however, that I am dismissing the enemy. It will be hloody.’ With that she gestured, and the group began withdrawing from the ridgeline.
As they made their way down to the waiting horses, Brohl Handar said, ‘I saw no pickets, Atri-Preda. Nor mounted outriders. Does that not seem odd to you?’
‘No. They know we are close. They wanted us to see that camp.’
‘To achieve what? Some pointless effort to overawe us?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
You invite me to feel contempt for these Awl. Why? So that you can justify not using the Tiste Edur? The K’risnan? You want this victory on the morrow to be Letherii. You do not want to find yourself beholden to the Edur-not for this grand theft of land and beast, this harvesting of slaves.
So, I suspect, the Factor instructed, hetur Anict is not one to share the spoils.
I, Atri-Preda, am not relieved.
‘Stone-tipped arrows-you are truly a fool. They will break against Letherii armour. I can expect nothing from you. At least I discover that now, instead of in the midst of battle.
Toe Anaster settled back on his haunches and watched Torrent march out of the firelight. Off… somewhere. Somewhere important. Like the latrines. He resumed examin-ing the fletching on the Imass arrows. Gift of an old friend That clunking, creaking collection of droll bones. He could barely recall the last time he was among friends. Gruntle perhaps. Another continent. A drunken evening-wa: that Saltoan wine? Gredfallan ale? He couldn’t recall.
Surrounding him, the murmur of thousands-their moving through the camp, their quiet conversations around the cookfires. Old men and old women, the lame, the young. A fire burning for each and every Awl.
And somewhere out on the plain, Redmask and his warriors-a night without fires, without conversations. Nothing, I imagine, but the soft honing of weapon edges. Iron and stone whispering in the night.
A simple deceit, its success dependent on Letherii expectations. Enemy scouts had spotted this camp, after all, As predicted. Countless fires in the darkness, appropriately close to Bast Fulmar, the site of the impending battle. All the way it was supposed to be.
But Redmask had other plans. And to aid in the deception, Toc suspected, some arcane sorcery from the K’Chain Che’Malle.
An elder appeared, walking into the fire’s glow on bowed legs. Toc had seen this one speaking to Redmask, often riding at the war leader’s side. He crouched down opposite Toc and studied him for a dozen heartbeats, then spat into the flames, nodded at the answering sizzle, and spoke: ‘I do not trust you.’
‘I’m crushed.’
‘Those arrows, they are bound in ritual magic. Yet no spirit has blessed them. What sort of sorcery is that? Letherii? Are you a creature of the Tiles and Holds? A traitor in our midst. You plot betrayal, vengeance against our abandoning you.’
Trying to inspire me, Elder? Sorry to disappoint you, but there are no embers in the ashes, nothing to stir to life.’
‘You are young.’
‘Not as young as you think. Besides, what has that to do with anything?’
‘Redmask likes you.’
Toc scratched the scar where an eye had been. ‘Are your wits addled by age?’
A grunt. ‘I know secrets.’
‘Me too.’
‘None to compare with mine. I was there when Redmask’s sister killed herself.’
‘And I suckled at the tit of a K’Chain Che’Malle Matron. If tit is the right word.’
The old man’s face twisted in disbelief. ‘That is a good lie. But it is not the game I am playing. I saw with my own eyes the great sea canoes. Upon the north shore. Thousands upon thousands.’
Toc began returning the arrows to the hide quiver.
‘These arrows were made by a dead man. Dead for a hundred thousand years, or more.’
The wrinkled scowl opposite him deepened. ‘I have seen skeletons running in the night-on this very plain.’
‘This body you see isn’t mine. I stole it.’
‘I alone know the truth of Bast Fulmar.’
‘This body’s father was a dead man-he gasped his last breath even as his seed was taken on a field of battle.’
‘The victory of long ago was in truth a defeat.’
‘This body grew strong on human meat.’
‘Redmask will betray us.’
‘This mouth waters as I look at you.’
The old man pushed himself to his feet. ‘Evil speaks in lies.’
‘And the good know only one truth. But it’s a lie, because there’s always more than one truth.’
Another throatful of phlegm into the campfire. Then a complicated series of gestures, the inscribing in the air above the flames of a skein of wards that seemed to swirl for a moment in the thin smoke. ‘You are banished,’ the elder then pronounced.