‘Let’s make for that farm ahead,’ Fiddler said. ‘We’ll rest up there for the day-I don’t think our pursuers are in any condition to do much.’
‘The drum,’ Cuttle whispered. ‘I seen it. The drum. Now I can die happy.’
Damned sappers. Bottle shook his head. There was pain there, now, in that mangled stretch of track a quarter-league away. Human, beast, and… oh, and demon. You’d have done better chasing us. Even so, what a mess we’ve made.
Yes, plenty of pain, but more death. Flat, dwindling death, spreading dark as that dust in the air. Fiddler’s drum. No better announcement imaginable, that the Malazans were here.
Thom Tissy’s descent from the tree was a little loud, a little fast. In a skein of snapped branches, twigs, leaves and one abandoned wasp nest, the sergeant landed heavy and hard on his backside. ‘Ow, gods below, gods below!’
‘Ain’t no god at that end, just a tailbone,’ a soldier called out from the nearby squads.
Keneb waited for a few more heartbeats, then asked, ‘Sergeant, tell me what you saw.’
Thom Tissy slowly, carefully, regained his feet. He walked about on his short bandy legs, squat as an ogre, replete with pocked face and warty hands. ‘Smoke, Fist, and plenty of it. Counted ten spots in all, one of ‘em big-probably the thunder we heard a little while back-more than one cusser for sure. Maybe three, maybe more.’
Meaning someone was in desperate trouble. Keneb glanced away, scanned the motley soldiers hunkered down in the forest glade. ‘Ten?’
‘Aye, Fist. I guess we stirred ‘em up some, enough so that the fighting’s getting fierce. When the captain gets back, we’ll find out some details, I suppose.’
Yes. Faradan Sort. But she and Beak had been away for days, almost a week now.
‘Ten.’
‘Expecting more, Fist!’ Thorn Tissy asked. ‘My line of sight wasn’t bad, but not perfect. I saw six on the north side, four on the south, putting us near dead centre and a half a night’s travel behind. Anyway, the outermost smokes were right on the horizons, so we’re still spread well out, the way we should be. And the smoke just tells us where bigger fights happened, not all the other little ambushes and the like. Something wrong, Fist?’
‘Settle the squads in,’ Keneb replied, turning away. Oh, aye, there was fighting going on. But nothing evenly matched. His marines were outnumbered; no chance of acquiring the allies they’d thought they’d get. True, they were loaded down with munitions, but the more mages arriving with the Edur and Letherii troops the more the sheer overwhelming imbalance would start to tell. His squads, even paired up, couldn’t afford losses. Four or five dead and that threshold of effectiveness would have been crossed. There would have to be convergence, merging of survivors-and this leagues-long line of advance would start thinning out. Instead of gaining in strength and momentum as the advance began to close in on this empire’s capital, the Malazan marines would in fact be weaker.
Of course, this invasion was not simply Keneb’s covert marine advance. There were other elements-the Adjunct and Blistig’s regular infantry, who would be led in the field, when that time came, by the terrifying but competent Captain Kindly. There were the Khundryl Burned Tears and the Perish-although they were, for the moment, far away. A complicated invasion indeed.
For us, here, all we need to do is sow confusion, cut supplies to the capital whenever we can, and just keep the enemy off balance, guessing, reacting rather than initiating. The fatal blows will come from elsewhere, and I need to remind myself of that. So that I don’t try to do too much. What counts is keeping as many of my marines alive as possible-not that the Adjunct’s tactics with us give me much chance of that. 1 think I’m starting to understand how the Bridgehumers felt, when they were being thrown into every nightmare, again and again.
Especially at the end. Pale, Darujhistan, that city called Black Coral.
But no, this is different. The Adjunct doesn’t want us wiped out. That would be insanity, and she may be a cold, cold bitch, but she’s not mad. At least not so it’s showed, anyway.
Keneb cursed himself. The strategy had been audacious, yes, yet founded on sound principles. On traditional principles, in fact. Kellanved’s own, in the purpose behind the creation of the marines; in the way the sappers rose to pre-eminence, once the Moranth munitions arrived to revolutionize Malazan-style warfare. This was, in fact, the old, original way of employing the marines-although the absence of supply lines, no matter how tenuous or stretched, enforced a level of commitment that allowed no deviation, no possibility of retreat-she burned the transports and not a Quorl in sight-creating a situation that would have made the Emperor squirm.
Or not. Kellanved had known the value of gambles, had known how an entire war could shift, could turn on that single unexpected, outrageous act, the breaking of protocol that left the enemy reeling, then, all at once, entirely routed.
Such acts were what made military geniuses. Kellanved, Dassem Ultor, Sher’arah of Korel, Prince K’azz D’avore of the Crimson Guard. Caladan Brood. Coltaine. Dujek.
Did Adjunct Tavore belong in this esteemed company? She’s not shown it yet, has she? Gods above, Keneb, you’ve got to stop thinking like this. You’ll become another Blistig and one Llistig is more than enough.
He needed to focus on the matters at hand. He and the marines were committed to this campaign, this bold gamble. Leave the others to do their part, believing at all times that they would succeed, that they would appear in their allotted positions when the moment arrived. They would appear, yes, with the expectation that he, Keneb, would do the same. With the bulk of his marines.
Game pieces, aye. Leave the deciding hand to someone else. To fate, to the gods, to Tavore of Home Varan, Adjunct to No-one. So bringing me round, damn this, to faith. Again. Faith. That she’s not insane. That she’s a military genius to rival a mere handful of others across the span of Malazan history.
Faith. Not in a god, not in fate, but in a fellow mortal. Whose face he knew well, remembering with grim clarity its limited range of expression, through grief to anger, to her ferocious will to achieve… whatever it is she seeks to achieve. Now, if only I knew what that was.
Perhaps this kind of fighting was suited to the marines. But it was not suited to Keneb himself. Not as commander, not as Fist. It was hard not to feel helpless. He wasn’t even in contact with his army, beyond sporadic murmurings among the squad mages. I’ll feel better when Faradan Sort returns.
If she returns.
‘Fist.’
Keneb turned. ‘You following me round, Sergeant?’
‘No sir,’ Thorn Tissy replied. ‘Just thought I’d say, before I sack out, that, well, we understand.’
‘Understand what? Who is “we”?’
‘All of us, sir. It’s impossible. I mean, for you. We know that.’
‘Do you now?’
‘Aye. You can’t lead. You’re stuck with following, and not knowing what in Hood’s name is happening to your soldiers, because they’re all over the place-’
‘Go get some sleep, Sergeant. And tell the rest, I am not aware that any of this is impossible. We maintain the advance, and that is that.’
‘Well, uh-’
‘You presume too much, Sergeant. Now return to your squad, tell your soldiers to stow all the theorizing, and go get some sleep.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Keneb watched the squat man walk away. Decent of him, all that rubbish. Decent, but pointless and dangerous. We’re not friends, Thorn Tissy. Neither of us can afford that.
After a moment, he allowed himself a wry smile. All of his complaints regarding Tavore, and here he was, doing the same damned thing that she did-pushing them all away.
Because it was necessary. Because there was no choice.
So, if she’s mad, then so am I.