The dead all look alike.
Especially once they have been picked over—their armour, and their weapons, and half their clothes taken. They lay heaped thick and tangled in one spot, in the long shadow of a broken pillar. An ancient-looking thing, split and shattered, crumbling stone sprouting with withered grass and spotted with lichen. A big black bird sat on top of it, wings folded, peering at Ferro with beady, unblinking eyes as she came close.
The corpse of a huge man was lying half-propped against the battered stone below, a broken staff still gripped in his lifeless hand, dark blood and dark dirt crusted under the nails. Most likely the staff had held a flag, Ferro thought. Soldiers seemed to care a great deal for flags. She had never understood that. You could not kill a man with one. You could not protect yourself with one. And yet men would die for flags.
“Foolishness,” she muttered, frowning up at the big bird on the pillar.
“A massacre,” said Ninefingers.
Bayaz grunted and rubbed his chin. “But of who, by whom?”
Ferro could see Luthar’s swollen face peering wide-eyed and worried over the side of the cart. Quai was just in front of him on the driver’s seat, the reins dangling loose in his hands, his face expressionless as he looked down at the corpses.
Ferro turned over one of the bodies and sniffed at it. Pale skin, dark lips, no smell yet. “It did not happen long ago. Two days, maybe?”
“But no flies?” Ninefingers frowned at the bodies. A few birds were perched on them, watching. “Just birds. And they’re not eating. Strange.”
“Not really, friend!” Ferro jerked her head up. A man was striding quickly towards them across the battlefield, a tall pink in a ragged coat, a gnarled length of wood in one hand. He had an unkempt head of greasy hair, a long, matted beard. His eyes bulged bright and wild in a face carved with deep lines. Ferro stared at him, not sure how he could have come so close without her noticing.
The birds rose up from the bodies at the sound of his voice, but they did not scatter from him. They flew towards him, some settling on his shoulders, some flapping about his head and round him in wide circles. Ferro reached for her bow, snatching at an arrow, but Bayaz held out his arm. “No.”
“Do you see this?” The tall pink pointed at the broken pillar, and the bird flapped from it and across onto his outstretched finger. “A hundred-mile column! One hundred miles to Aulcus!” He dropped his arm and the bird hopped onto his shoulder, next to the others, and sat there, still and silent. “You stand on the very borders of the dead land! No animals come here that are not made to come!”
“How now, brother?” called Bayaz, and Ferro shoved her arrow unhappily away. Another Magus. She might have guessed. Whenever you put two of these old fools together there were sure to be a lot of lips flapping, a lot of words made.
And that meant a lot of lies.
“The Great Bayaz!” shouted the new arrival as he came closer. “The First of the Magi! I heard tell you were coming from the birds of the air, the fish of the water, the beasts of the earth, and now I see with my own eyes, and yet still I scarcely believe. Can it be? That those blessed feet should touch this bloody ground?”
He planted his staff on the earth, and as he did the big black bird scrambled from his shoulder and grasped the tip with its claws, flapping its wings until it was settled. Ferro took a cautious step back, putting one hand on her knife. She did not intend to be shat on by one of those things.
“Zacharus,” said Bayaz, swinging down stiffly from his saddle, although it seemed to Ferro he said the name with little joy. “You look in good health, brother.”
“I look tired. I look tired, and dirty, and mad, for that is what I am. You are difficult to find, Bayaz. I have been searching all across the plain and back.”
“We have been keeping out of sight. Khalul’s allies are seeking for us also.” Bayaz’ eyes twitched over the carnage. “Is this your work?”
“That of my charge, young Goltus. He is fierce as a lion, I tell you, and makes as fine an Emperor as the great men of old! He has captured his greatest rival, his brother Scario, and has shown him mercy.” Zacharus sniffed. “Not my advice, but the young will have their way. These were the last of Scario’s men. Those who would not surrender.” He flapped a careless hand at the corpses, and the birds on his shoulders flapped with him.
“Mercy only goes so far,” observed Bayaz.
“They would not run into the dead land, so here they made their stand, and here they died, in the shadow of the hundred-mile columns. Goltus took the standard of the Third Legion from them. The very standard that Stolicus himself rode into battle under. A relic of the Old Time! Just as you and I are, brother.”
Bayaz did not seem impressed. “A piece of old cloth. It did these fellows precious little good. Carrying a stretch of moth-food does not make a man Stolicus.”
“Perhaps not. The thing is much faded, truth be told. Its jewels were all torn out and sold long ago to buy weapons.”
“Jewels are a luxury in these days, but everyone needs weapons. Where is your young Emperor now?”
“Already on his way back eastwards with no time even to burn the dead. He is heading for Darmium, to lay siege to the city and hang this madman Cabrian from the walls. Then perhaps we can have peace.”
Bayaz gave a joyless snort. “Do you even remember what it feels like, to have peace?”
“You might be surprised at what I remember.” And Zacharus’ bulging eyes stared down at Bayaz. “But how are matters in the wider world? How is Yulwei?”
“Watching, as always.”
“And what of our other brother, the shame of our family, the great Prophet Khalul?”
Bayaz’ face grew hard. “He grows in strength. He begins to move. He senses his moment has come.”
“And you mean to stop him, of course?”
“What else should I do?”
“Hmmm. Khalul was in the South, when last I heard, yet you journey westward. Have you lost your way, brother? There is nothing out here but the ruins of the past.”
“There is power in the past.”
“Power? Hah! You never change. Strange company, you ride with, Bayaz. Young Malacus Quai I know, of course. How goes it, teller of tales?” he called out to the apprentice. “How goes it, talker? How does my brother treat you?”
Quai stayed hunched on his cart. “Well enough.”
“Well enough? That’s all? You have learned to stay silent, then, at least. How did you teach him that, Bayaz? That I never could make him learn.”
Bayaz frowned up at Quai. “I hardly had to.”
“So. What did Juvens say? The best lessons one teaches oneself.” Zacharus turned his bulging eyes on Ferro, and the eyes of his birds turned with him, all as one. “This is a strange one you have here.”
“She has the blood.”
“You still need one who can speak with the spirits.”
“He can.” Bayaz nodded his head at Ninefingers. The big pink had been fiddling with his saddle but now he looked up, bewildered.
“Him?” Zacharus frowned. Much anger, Ferro thought, but some sadness, and some fear. The birds on his shoulders, and his head, and the tip of his staff, stood tall and spread their wings, and flapped and squawked. “Listen to me, brother, before it is too late. Give up this folly. I will stand with you against Khalul. I will stand with you and Yulwei. The three of us, together, as it was in the Old Time, as it was against the Maker. The Magi united. I will help you.”
There was a long silence, and hard lines spread out across Bayaz’ face. “You will help me? If only you had offered your help long ago, after the Maker fell, when I begged you for it. Then we might have torn up Khalul’s madness before it put down roots. Now the whole South swarms with Eaters, making the world their playground, treating the solemn word of our master with open scorn! The three of us will not be enough, I think. What then? Will you lure Cawneil from her books? Will you find Leru, under whatever stone she has crawled beneath in all the wide Circle of the World? Will you bring Karnault back from across the wide ocean, or Anselmi and Brokentooth from the land of the dead? The Magi united, is it?” And Bayaz’ lip curled into a sneer. “That time is done, brother. That ship sailed, long ago, never to return, and we were not on it!”