‘I am, sire,’ said Bugg.
‘Excellent. Royal Treasurer, are you confident that the Malazans have sufficient funds for this enterprise?’
‘So I am assured, sire,’ said Bugg.
‘Good. Ceda, do you concur that the departure of the Malazans will hasten the healing that has befallen the city?’
‘I do, sire,’ said Bugg.
‘Consensus at last! How delightful! Now what should we do?’
Queen Janath stood. ‘Food and wine awaits us in the dining hall. Allow me to lead our guests.’ And she stepped down from the dais.
‘Darling wife,’ said Tehol, ‘for you I make all manner of allowances.’
‘I am relieved that you so willingly assume such a burden, husband.’
‘So am I,’ he replied.
Chapter Six
The beetle that walks slowly has nothing to fear.
Coated in dust-spattered blood, Vedith rode out of the billowing smoke, in his wake piteous screams and the raucous roar of flames as they engulfed the three-storey government building in the town’s centre. Most of the other structures lining the main street were already gutted, although fires still licked the blackened frames and the foul smoke lifted pillars skyward.
Four other riders emerged behind Vedith, scimitars unsheathed, the Aren steel blades streaked with gore.
Hearing their wild whoops, Vedith scowled. The mangled round shield strapped to his right forearm had driven splinters through the wrist and that hand could not grip the reins. In his left hand he held his own scimitar, the blade snapped a hand’s-width above the hilt-he would have thrown it away but he valued the hilt, grip and pommel too much to part with it.
His horse’s reins dragged between the beast’s front legs and at any moment the galloping mount, in her fear and pain, might slam a hoof down on them, which would snap her neck down and send her rider tumbling.
He rose in his stirrups, leaned forward-pounded by the horse’s pitching neck-and bit the animal’s left ear, tugging backwards. Squealing, the beast’s head lifted, her plunging hoofs slowing, drawing up. This gave Vedith time to sheathe what was left of his father’s sword and then slip his arm round the horse’s neck, easing the pressure of his teeth.
Moments later, the wounded mare pitched and wobbled down off the cobbled road into the high grasses of the ditch and clumped to a halt, body trembling.
Murmuring calming words, the warrior released the animal’s ear and settled back on the saddle, collecting the reins with his one usable hand.
His four companions rode up and, beasts jostling on the road, they held their swords high in triumph, even as they spat dust and blood from their mouths.
Vedith felt sick. But he understood. The growing list of proscriptions, the ever-dwindling freedom, the indignities and undisguised contempt. Each day in the past week more Bolkando soldiers had arrived, fortlets springing up round the Khundryl encampment like mushroom knuckles on dung. And tensions twisted ever tighter. Arguments burst to life like spotfires, and then, all at once-
He guided his horse back on to the road and glared back at the burning town. And then scanned the horizons to either side. Columns of coiling black smoke rose everywhere like crooked spears-yes, the patience of the Burned Tears was at an end, and he knew that a dozen villages, twice as many hamlets, scores of farms and, now, one town, had felt the wrath of the Khundryl.
Vedith’s raiding party, thirty warriors-most of them barely into their third decade-had clashed with a garrison. The fighting had been ferocious. He’d lost most of his troop, and this had been fuel enough to set ablaze the Khundryl fury, inflicting wrathful vengeance upon wounded soldiers and the civilian inhabitants of the town.
The taste of that slaughter left a bitter, toxic stain, inside and out.
His horse could not hold still. Her slashed flank still bled freely. She circled, head tossing, kicking with the wounded hind leg.
They’d left scores of corpses in that nameless town. This very morning it had been a peaceful place, life awakening and crawling on to the old familiar trails, a slow beating heart. Now it was ruin and charred meat-they’d not even bothered looting, so fierce upon them was the lust for slaughter.
To a proud people, the contempt of others drives the deepest wound. These Bolkando had thought the Khundryl knives were dull. Dull knives, dull minds. They had thought they could cheat the savages, mock them, ply them with foul liquor and steal their wealth.
We are Seven Cities-did you think you were the first to try to play such games with us?
Stragglers were still emerging-three, two, a lone wounded warrior slumped over his saddle, two more.
The soldiers of the garrison had not understood how to meet a cavalry charge. It was as if they had never before seen such a thing, gaping at the precise execution, the deadly timing of the javelins launched when the two sides were but a dozen paces apart. The Bolkando line-formed up across the main street-had crumpled as the barbed javelins punched through shield and scale armour, as figures reeled, buckled and fouled others.
The Khundryl warhorses and their howling, scimitar-slashing riders then smashed into that tattered formation.
A slaughter. Until the rear sections of the Bolkando dispersed, scattering into clumps, pelting into the side avenues, the alleys, the sheltered mouths of stone-faced shops. The battle broke up then, knots spinning away. Khundryl warriors were forced to dismount, unable to press into the narrower alleys, or draw back out into the open soldiers crouched behind drawn-up shields in the niches of doorways. Still outnumbered, warriors of the Burned Tears began falling.
It had taken most of the morning to hunt down and butcher the last garrison soldier. And barely a bell to murder the townsfolk who had not fled-who had, presumably, imagined that seventy-five soldiers would prevail against a mere thirty savages-and then set fire to the town, roasting alive the few who had successfully hidden themselves.
Such scenes, Vedith knew, were raging across the entire countryside now. No one was spared, and to deliver the message in the clearest way imaginable, every Bolkando farm was being stripped of anything and everything edible or otherwise useful. The revolt had been ignited by the latest Bolkando price hike-a hundred per cent, applicable only to the Khundryl-on all necessities, including fodder for the horses. Revile us, yes, even as you take our silver and gold.
He had a dozen warriors with him now, one of them likely to die soon-well before they reached the encampment. And thick splinters rode up his forearm like extra longbones, pain throbbing.
Yes, the losses had been high. But then, what other troop had attacked a garrisoned town?
Still, he wondered if, perhaps, the Burned Tears had kicked awake the wrong nest.
‘Bind Sidab’s wounds,’ he now said in a growl. ‘Has he his sword?’
‘He has, Vedith.’
‘Give it to me-mine broke.’
Although he was dying and knew it, Sidab lifted his head at this and showed Vedith a red smile.
‘It shall weight my hand as did my father’s sword,’ Vedith said. ‘I shall wield it with pride, Sidab.’
The man nodded, smile fading. He coughed out a gout of blood and then slid out of his saddle, thumping heavily on to the cobbled road.
‘Sidab stays behind.’
The others nodded and spat to make a circle round the corpse, thus sanctifying the ground, completing the only funeral ceremony needed for Khundryl warriors on the path of war. Vedith reached out and took up the reins of Sidab’s horse. He would take the beast as well, and ride it, to ease his own mount’s discomfort. ‘We return to Warleader Gall. Our words shall make his eyes shine.’