‘Then let us hope that one hard lesson is enough,’ the captain said.
‘Expect it is,’ Urb confirmed.
Faradan Sort faced Beak. ‘Tell them about the Holds, Beak.’
He flinched, then sighed and said, ‘Letherii mages-they might be able to find us by the horses, by smelling them out, I mean.’
‘Balgrid’s covering our trail,’ Urb said. ‘Are you saying it won’t work?’
‘Might be,’ Beak said. ‘Necromancy’s one thing they can’t figure. Not Letherii. Not Tiste Edur. But there’s a Beast Hold, you see.’
Hellian withdrew a flask and drank down a mouthful, then said, ‘We need to know for certain. Next time, Urb, we get us one of them Letherii mages alive. We ask some questions, and in between the screams we get answers.’
Beak shivered. Not just drunk but bloodthirsty, too.
‘Be careful,’ the captain said. ‘That could go sour very quickly.’
‘We know all about careful, sir,’ Hellian said with a bleary smile.
Faradan Sort studied the sergeant the way she sometimes studied Beak himself, then she said, ‘We’re done. Slow down some, and watch out for small patrols-they might be bait.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘We’re in this, now. Understand?’
‘No rafts?’
‘No rafts, Hellian.’
‘Good. If’n I never see another sea I’m going to die happy.’
She would, too, Beak knew. Die happy. She had that going for her.
‘Back to your squads,’ the captain said. ‘Set your nervous soldiers at ease.’
‘It’s not the smell,’ Beak said.
The others turned inquiringly.
‘That’s not what’s making them nervous, I mean,’ Beak explained. ‘The death smell-they’re carrying all that with them, right? So they’re used to it now. They’re only nervous because they’ve been sitting around too long. In one place. That’s all.’
‘Then let us not waste any more time,’ Faradan Sort said.
Good idea. That was why she was a captain, of course. Smart enough to make her ways of thinking a mystery to him-but that was one mystery he was happy enough with. Maybe the only one.
They flung themselves down at the forest’s edge. Edge, aye-too many damned edges. Beyond was a patchwork of farmland and hedgerows. Two small farms were visible, although no lantern-or candle-light showed through the tiny, shuttered windows. Heart pounding painfully in his chest, Fiddler rolled onto his side to see how many had made it. A chorus of harsh breaths from the scatter of bodies in the gloom to either side of the sergeant. All there. Thanks to Corabb and the desert warrior’s impossible luck.
The ambush had been a clever one, he admitted. Should have taken them all down. Instead, half a league back, in a small grassy glade, there was the carcass of a deer-a deer that Corabb had inadvertently flushed out-with about twenty arrows in it. Cleverly planned, poorly executed.
The Malazans had quickly turned it. Sharpers cracking in the night, crossbows thudding, the flit of quarrels and the punch of impact. Shrieks of agony. A rush from Gesler’s heavies had broken one side of the ambush-
And then the sorcery had churned awake, something raw and terrible, devouring trees like acid. Grey tongues of chaotic fire, heaving into a kind of standing wave. Charging forward, engulfing Sands-his scream had been mercifully short. Fiddler, not ten paces away from where Sands had vanished, saw the Letherii mage, who seemed to be screaming with his own pain, even as the wave hurled forward. Bellowing, he’d swung his crossbow round, felt the kick in his hands as he loosed the heavy quarrel.
The cusser had struck a bole just above and behind the mage’s head. The explosion flattened nearby trees, shredded a score of Letherii soldiers. Snuffed the sorcery out in an instant. As more trees toppled, branches thrashing down, the Malazans had pulled back, fast, and then they ran.
Movement from Fiddler’s left and a moment later Gesler dragged himself up alongside. ‘Hood’s damned us all, Fid. We’re running out of forest-how’s Cuttle?’
‘Arrow’s deep,’ Fiddler replied, ‘but not a bleeder. We can dig it out when we get a chance.’
‘Think they’re tracking us?’
Fiddler shook his head. He had no idea. If there were enough of them left. He twisted round. ‘Bottle,’ he hissed, ‘over here.’
The young mage crawled close.
‘Can you reach back?’ Fiddler asked. ‘Find out if they’re after us?’
‘Already did, Sergeant. Used every damned creature in our wake.’
‘And?’ Gesler wanted to know.
‘That cusser did most of them, Sergeant. But the noise brought others. At least a dozen Tiste Edur and maybe a few hundred Letherii. Are they tracking us now? Aye, but still a way behind-they’ve learned to be cautious, I guess.’
‘We’re losing the dark,’ Gesler said. ‘We need a place to hide, Fid-only that’s probably not going to work this time, is it? They’re not going to rest.’
‘Can we lose them?’ Fiddler asked Bottle.
‘I’m pretty tired, Sergeant-’
‘Never mind. You’ve done enough. What do you think, Gesler? Time to get messy?’
‘And use up our few cussers?’
‘Don’t see much choice, to be honest. Of course, I always hold one back. Same for Cuttle.’
Gesler nodded. ‘We had ours distributed-good thing, too, the way Sands went up. Still, he had munitions on him, yet they didn’t ignite-’
‘Oh, but they did,’ Fiddler said. ‘Just not in this realm.
Am I right, Bottle? That sorcery, it’s like a broken gate, the kind that chews up whoever goes through it.’
‘Spirits below, Fid, you smelled it out about dead right. That magic, it started as one thing, then became another-and the mage was losing control, even before you minced him.’
Fiddler nodded. He’d seen as much. Or thought he had. ‘So, Bottle, what does that mean?’
The young mage shook his head. ‘Things are getting out of hand… somewhere. There was old stuff, primitive magic, at first. Not as ancient as spirit-bound stuff. Still, primitive. And then something chaotic grabbed it by the throat
A short distance away, Koryk rolled onto his back. He was bone tired. Let Bottle and the sergeants mutter away, he knew they were neck-deep in Hood’s dusty shit.
‘Hey, Koryk.’
‘What is it, Smiles?’
‘You damned near lost it back there, you know.’
‘I did, did I?’
‘When them four came at you all at once, oh, you danced quite a jig, half-blood.’ She laughed, low and brimming with what sounded like malice. ‘And if I hadn’t come along to stick a knife in that one’s eye-the one who’d slipped under your guard and was ready to give you a wide belly smile-well, you’d be cooling fast back there right now.’
‘And the other three?’ Koryk asked, grinning in the gloom. ‘Bet you never knew I was that quick, did you?’
‘Something tells me you didn’t either.’
He said nothing, because she was right. He’d been in something like a frenzy, yet his eye and his hand had been cold, precise. Through it all it had been as if he had simply watched, every move, every block, every shift in stance and twist, every slash of his heavy blade. Watched, yes, yet profoundly in love with that moment, with each moment. He’d felt some of this at the shield wall on the dock that night in Malaz City. But what had begun as vague euphoria was now transformed into pure revelation. 1 like killing. Gods below, I do like it, and the more 1 like it, the better at it I get. He never felt more alive, never more perfectly alive.
‘Can’t wait to see you dance again,’ Smiles murmured.
Koryk blinked in the gloom, then shifted to face her. Was she stirred? Had he somehow kissed her awake between those muscled legs of hers? Because he’d killed well? Did 1 dance that jig, Smiles? ‘You get scarier, woman, the more I know you.’
She snorted. ‘As it should be, half-blood.’
Tarr spoke from Koryk’s other side: ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
A slightly more distant laugh from Cuttle, ‘Aye, Tarr, it’s what happens when your entire world view collapses. Of course,’ he added, ‘if you could manage to dance like poetry when killing people, who knows-’