As Lostara made to leave, Quick Ben said, ‘Captain, be sure that Atri-Ceda Aranict is present.’
She nodded and then departed.
The Adjunct stepped close to Keneb. ‘Fist. We have suffered a wound here. It may prove deeper and more serious than any of us presently believe. You may be assured that I will do all that is in my power to find and retrieve Gesler and Stormy-but understand, we must continue the march. We must hold this army together.’
‘Aye, Adjunct. To that end, we have another problem. He was just here, in fact.’
She held his gaze. ‘I am aware of that, Fist. I am also aware of the additional burdens you have been forced to carry as a consequence. I will deal with this matter shortly. In the meantime, we need to make certain that the rumour of Gesler and Stormy deserting is laid to rest. The truth is unpleasant enough in its own right that none will think us dissembling. Summon your officers, Fist.’ She then turned to her High Mage. ‘Do what you can to protect us.’
‘I will, Adjunct.’
‘And find them, Quick Ben.’
‘Again, whatever I can do, I will do it.’
‘We cannot lose any more veterans.’
She did not need to add that without them the chains of this army would snap at the first moment of trouble. Even now, one more gust of ill wind could do us all in.
Gesler and Stormy, you damned idiots. Probably tossing dice in that rank tent you shared-or stitching a solid wall down the middle to close another spat. As bad as brothers, you two were. And now you’re gone and there’s a huge hole in my company of marines, one I can’t hope to see filled.
The Adjunct and the High Mage had left. Fiddler and Bottle drew close to their Fist.
‘Fire, sir.’
Keneb frowned at Fiddler. ‘Excuse me?’
‘It’s the fire. The one they went through. Thinking on it, I doubt that winged lizard will be back. I can’t be sure, but my feeling is we’ve seen the last of it. And the last of them.’
‘You said this to the Adjunct?’
‘Just a feeling, sir. I’m sending Bottle out tonight, to see what he can find.’
Bottle looked thrilled at the prospect.
‘Let me know what he discovers, Sergeant. Immediately-don’t wait until morning. I’m not sleeping anyway.’
‘I know the feeling, sir. As soon as we get something, then.’
‘Good. Go on, now. I’ll see to dispersing Gesler’s squad-hold on, why not take one now? Take your pick, Fid.’
‘Shortnose will do. He’s hiding a brain behind all that gnarly bone and whatnot.’
‘Are you sure?’ Keneb asked.
‘I sent him to collect four people in a specific sequence. I didn’t need to repeat myself, sir.’
‘And he’s a heavy?’
‘Aye, sometimes things ain’t what they seem, you know?’
‘I’ll have to think about that, Fiddler. All right, take him and get going.’
Outrider Henar Vygulf walked up the main avenue between the ordered rows of the Letherii camp. Though a horseman, the ground trembled slightly with each step he took, and there was little debate as to who was the tallest, biggest soldier in Brys’s army. He drew curious stares as he made his way to HQ. He wasn’t astride his huge horse, after all, and not riding at a torrid pitch making people scatter as was his habit; thus, seeing him on foot was shocking in itself, quite apart from the fact that he was striding into the heart of the encampment. Henar Vygulf hated crowds. He probably hated people. Could be he hated the world.
Trailing two steps behind him was Lance Corporal Odenid, who was attached to the commander’s staff as a message-bearer. This was his sole task these days: finding soldiers and dragging them back to Brys Beddict. The commander was conducting intensive and extensive interviews, right through the whole army. Odenid had heard that for the most part Brys was asking about the Wastelands, collecting rumours, old tales, wispy legends. The most extraordinary thing of all, when it came to these interviews, was Brys Beddict’s uncanny ability to remember names and faces. At day’s end he would call in a scribe and recount for her a complete and detailed list of those soldiers and support staff he’d spoken with that day. He would give ages, places of birth, military history, even family details such as he had gleaned, and he would add notes on whatever each soldier knew or thought they knew about the Wastelands.
The Beddict brothers, Odenid concluded, were probably not even human. Probably both god-touched. Hadn’t Brys returned from the dead? And hadn’t he been the only one-until that Tarthenal-to have defeated the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths?
Henar Vygulf had been summoned for an interview, but this time there was more to it, or so Odenid suspected. An officer from the Bonehunters had ridden into camp early this morning. Something had happened. Odenid didn’t rank high enough to be able to lounge around in the HQ tent, and the commander’s inner circle were a close-mouthed lot one and all. Whatever the news had been, it had stalled the march, probably until noon. And the Malazan was still there, in a private meeting with Brys and his Ceda-Odenid had seen them himself when he’d been summoned in and told to head to the outriders and bring back Henar Vygulf. ‘Or,’ had said Brys, ‘I think he is so named. The tall one, the one with Bluerose ancestry. Has in his train about ten specially bred horses strong enough to carry him-a family of horse-breeders, I seem to recall…’
And the man slept on his right and pissed standing on one leg, yes, that’s him all right.
The added thought made Odenid smile. God-touched. Brys hadn’t even interviewed Henar yet.
They reached the front entrance to the command tent. Henar halted, ignoring the lone guard standing beside the flap as he turned to Odenid. ‘Do you announce me?’
‘No. Just go in, Outrider.’
Henar had to duck, something that never put him in a good mood. There were reasons for living out in the open, good ones, and even these flimsy walls of canvas and now silk seemed to push in on him. He was forced to deepen his breathing, struggling to beat down the panic rising within him.
Two other aides waved him through to the inner chambers. He tried not to see them once the gestures were made. Walls were miserable enough; people crowded inside the tight spaces they made, with Henar trapped in there with them, was even worse. They were breathing his air. It was all he could do not to snap both their necks.
That was the problem with armies. Too many people. Even the relatively open camp with its berms and corner fortlets and widely spaced tent rows could instil in him a wild desperation. When he delivered dispatches into such camps, he rode like a madman, just to push through and deliver the message and then get the damned out as quickly as possible.
He made his way down a too-narrow passage and stepped through a cloying slit in the silks to find himself in a larger room, the ceiling peaked and morning sunlight making the air glow. Commander Brys sat in a folding chair, the Atri-Ceda Aranict standing on his left. Seated in another chair was the Malazan officer, her legs folded showing him a solid, muscled thigh-his eyes followed the sweeping curve of its underside and all at once his breathing steadied. A moment later his gaze lifted to her face.
Brys waited for the huge man’s attention to return to him. It didn’t. Henar Vygulf was staring at Lostara Yil as if he’d never before seen a woman-granted, a beautiful woman in this instance. Even so… he cleared his throat. ‘Outrider Henar Vygulf, thank you for coming.’
The man’s eyes flicked to Brys and then back again. ‘As ordered, sir.’
‘If I could have your attention? Good. You were attached to the Drene Garrison during the Awl Campaign, correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Liaising with the Bluerose Lancers, the company to which you once belonged.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Brys frowned. ‘Well, this isn’t working. Outrider, may I introduce to you Captain Lostara Yil, adjutant to the Adjunct Tavore of the Bonehunters. Captain, this is Outrider Henar Vygulf.’