‘You’ve lost your mind, hag.’
‘Wake them up!’ Olar Ethil snapped. ‘We need to go south – and we must hurry!’
‘I smell the sea on this wind,’ Torrent said, facing east.
‘Of course you do, you fool. Now get the runts up – we must go!’
You are losing your grip, witch, and you know it, don’t you? You think that whatever you set out to do will be enough, that it will solve everything – but now you’re discovering that it won’t. I hope I do live for a while longer – long enough to be standing over your corpse.
‘Your mind leaks, pup.’
It only leaks what I let through.
She shot him a look. Torrent turned away, went to awaken the children.
Telorast lunged and leapt alongside Curdle. ‘We’ll be safe there, Curdle, won’t we? The chains of our curse – broken in the Storm! Right?’
‘What I planned from the very start, Telorast – and if you weren’t so thick you’d have guessed that long ago.’
‘It was that priest of the Worm, that clever drunk one – better than Not-Apsalar, better by far! He told us everything we needed to know, so I don’t have to guess, Curdle, because between us I’m the smarter one.’
‘The only smart thing you ever did was swindling me into being your friend.’
‘Friend lover sister or better half, it’s all the same with us, and isn’t that the best, Curdle? This is what it means to live a life of mystery and adventure! Oh – is my leg coming off? Curdle! My leg!’
‘It’s fine. Just wobbly. Soon it won’t matter. Soon we will have the bodies to match our egos and won’t that be a scary thing? Why, I can smell us a throne, Telorast. Can you?’
But Telorast had skidded to a halt. ‘Wait! Curdle, wait! That Storm – it’ll devour us!’
‘So we get eaten – at least we’ll be free. And sooner or later, the Storm will break up. It has to.’
‘More like tear itself apart,’ Telorast hissed. ‘We’ve got to be careful then, Curdle, so we don’t get eaten for real.’
‘Well of course we’ll be careful. We’re brilliant.’
‘And sneaky.’
‘That’s why creatures like us never lose, Telorast. We overflow with talents – they’re spilling out everywhere!’
‘So long as my leg doesn’t fall off.’
‘If it does I’ll carry you.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, drag you.’
‘You’re so sweet, Curdle.’
‘It’s because we’re in love, Telorast. Love is the reason I’d drag you anywhere. We love ourselves and so we deserve two thrones – at least two! We deserve them so we’ll have them, even if we have to kill ten thousand babies to get to them.’
‘Babies? Killing babies?’
‘Why not?’
They resumed their swishing rush through the grasses. ‘I can almost see them, Telorast! An army of babies between us and those thrones. They can swing their bone rattles all they like – we’ll chew through them like cheese!’
‘And kittens and puppies and small mice, too!’
‘Stop it, Curdle – you’re making me hungry! And save your breath – we’ll need it to kill Korabas.’
‘Can’t kill Korabas with our breaths, Telorast – she’s Otataral, remember? We’ve got to do it the hard way – piece by bloody piece, until she’s raining down from the sky!’
‘It will be great. Won’t it? Curdle, won’t it?’
‘The best, Telorast. Almost as good as eating babies!’
‘How long is this going to take? Are we there yet, Curdle? My legs are about to fall off, I swear it.’
‘Hmm, maybe we should veer. For a bit, I mean. Just a bit, and then back down, and then we run for a while, and then veer again – what do you think?’
‘I think you’re almost as clever as me.’
‘And you’re almost as clever as me. We’re almost as clever as each other! Isn’t that great?’
Paran reined in to let the boy off. Ordering the rest of the troop to remain where they were, he waved Mathok to accompany him as he rode closer to the foot of the pass. The old mountains formed a saddle neck ahead, and the slope gave them a clear view of the trenches, berms and redoubts crowding there.
Figures swarmed the defences.
‘We’ve been seen,’ Mathok said.
Five hundred strides from the base of the rough slope, Paran halted. Studied the vista. A cobbled road worked its way up the pass. At the first line of defences a half-ring of staked earthworks curled to face inward on that road – to attempt an assault there would invite a deadly enfilade. But the rest of the ground to either side of that road was rough and broken, almost a scree.
‘Had a wife once,’ Mathok muttered, ‘just like this.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The closer I got the uglier she looked. One of the many pitfalls in getting drunk at the full moon. Waking up to the horrors you’ve committed, and then having to live with them.’
There were two distinct tiers to the defences, and the closer one bore the standards of Kolanse. ‘Shriven auxiliaries,’ Paran said. ‘We’ll have to go through them to get to the Wolf army. Now that’s an unexpected complication.’
‘But you know, I loved that woman with all my might – she was my best wife, it turned out.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She inherited and left me for a prettier man. You see, she woke up that morning feeling the same horror as me, and the closer I got …’
‘Mathok, looks like we’re going to have a fight on our hands after all.’
‘Your words make me happy.’
‘We need to overwhelm and rout the Shriven. Then we can deal with the mercenaries. As it turns out,’ he added, collecting his reins, ‘that might be just what we need to convince them to surrender.’
‘There’ll be a Pure up there, High Fist. More fun for Kalam and your High Mage.’
‘We’ll draw up tonight. Mathok, your warriors won’t be much use if they stay mounted.’
The man shrugged. ‘Why do raiders ride horses, High Fist? Because it’s the quickest means of getting away.’
‘You’re not just raiders any more, Mathok.’
‘We’ll skirmish if that’s what you need, but we won’t like it. Now, that road, that’s a wide road, a military road. Clear the flanks and we can ride straight up it.’
‘Into the waiting teeth of those mercenaries? And uphill at that? I’ll not see you wasted. Sorry, no matter how thirsty you are for blood, you may have to wait a while longer.’
The warrior grimaced and then shrugged. ‘We’re thirsty for blood, yes, but not if most of it is our own.’
‘Good,’ Paran grunted. ‘Keep your mob in check, that’s all I ask.’
Mathok was studying him in a peculiar fashion. ‘High Fist, I’ve heard a lifetime of tales about the Malazan army. And I’ve run from a few close calls in my day, ended up getting chased for weeks.’ He jutted his chin at the pass. ‘But this – even those Shriven look to be enough to not only stop us dead, but hurt us bad in the doing.’
‘Your point?’
‘I fear for the Host, that’s all.’
Paran nodded. ‘Come the morning, Mathok, find a high vantage point for you and your warriors. And I will show you everything you need to know about the Malazan army.’
Two turns of the sand after the sun had set, the Host drew up a short distance from the base of the pass. Beneath the luminous green glow of the Jade Strangers, the companies broke out into their bivouacs. Forward pickets were established, although no probes were expected from the enemy. Soldiers ate a quick meal, and then rested. Most slept, although a few attended to their weapons and armour, their leather harnesses, their shields and footwear. Trailed by Fist Rythe Bude, Paran walked among the camps, exchanging words here and there with those soldiers too charged up or nervous to sleep.
He had never expected to be commanding an army. He had never expected to take the place of Dujek Onearm. He thought often of that man, and took from Dujek all he could. The Host had known bad times. It deserved better, but Paran suspected that this sentiment was felt by every commander.