‘No need to scream, sapper. When it came to planting that House, we weren’t even witnesses. Were we? But you know, it’s what those two sneaky bastards know, or seem to know, that really worries me. See my point?’
‘Oh, Hood piss in your boots, Ben Adaephon Delat.’
‘Got all your gear there, Hedge? Good. Because once we get to the Gates, we’re going through one of them.’
‘We are?’
‘We are.’ And the wizard grinned across at the sapper. ‘Fid’s never been the same without you.’
Silchas Ruin stood among ancient foundations-some Forkrul Assail remnant slumping its slow way down the mountainside-and lifted his face to the blue sky beyond the towering trees.
He had fulfilled his vow to the Azath.
And delivered unto the soul of Scabandari a reprieve Bloodeye did not deserve.
Vengeance, he well knew, was a poisoned triumph.
One task remained. A minor one, intended to serve little more than his own sense of redressing an egregious imbalance. He knew little of this Crippled God. But what little he knew, Silchas Ruin did not like.
Accordingly, he now spread his arms. And veered into his dragon form.
Surged skyward, branches torn away from the trees he shouldered aside. Into the crisp mountain air-far to the west, a pair of condors banked away in sudden terror. But the direction Silchas Ruin chose was not to the west.
South.
To a city called Letheras.
And this time, in truth, there was blood on his mind.
Chapter Twenty-Four
If these were our last days
If all whose eyes can look inward
Now passed from ken
Who would remain to grieve?
As we hang our heads
Beset by the failure of ambition
Eyes see and are indifferent
Eyes witness and they are uncaring.
The stone regard of the statues
Guarding the perfected square
Is carved as warm
As history’s soft surrender,
And the dancing creatures
In and out of our gaping mouths
Alone hear the wind moaning
Its hollow, hallowed voice.
So in these our last days
The end of what we see is inside
Where it all began and begins never again
A moment’s reprieve, then darkness falls.
Beak’s barrow began with a few bones tossed into the ash and charred, splintered skeleton that was all that remained of the young mage. Before long, other objects joined the heap. Buckles, clasps, fetishes, coins, broken weapons. By the time Fist Keneb was ready to give the command to march, the mound was nearly the height of a man. When Captain Faradan Sort asked Bottle for a blessing, the squad mage had shaken his head, explaining that the entire killing field that had been enclosed by Bottle’s sorcery was now magically dead. Probably permanently. At this news the captain had turned away, although Keneb thought he heard her say: ‘Not a candle left to light, then.’
As the marines set out for the city of Letheras, they could hear the rumble of detonations from the south, where the Adjunct had landed with the rest of the Bonehunters and was now engaging the Letherii armies. That thunder, Keneb knew, did not belong to sorcery.
He should be leading his troops to that battle, to hammer the Letherii rearguard, and then link up with Tavore and the main force. But Keneb agreed with the captain and with Fiddler and Gesler. He and his damned marines had earned this, had earned the right to be the first to assail this empire’s capital city.
‘Might be another army waiting on the walls,’ Sergeant Thorn Tissy had said, making his face twist in his singular expression of disapproval, like a man who’d just swallowed a nacht turd.
‘It’s possible there is,’ the Fist had conceded. And that particular conversation went no further.
Up onto the imperial road with its well-set cobbles and breadth sufficient to accommodate a column ten soldiers wide. Marching amidst discarded accoutrements and the rubbish left by the Letherii legions as the day drew to a close and the shadows lengthened.
Dusk was not far off and the last sleep had been some time past, yet his soldiers, Keneb saw, carried themselves-and their gear-as if fresh from a week’s rest.
A few hundred paces along, the column ran into the first refugees.
Smudged, frightened faces. Sacks and baskets of meagre provisions, wide-eyed babies peering from bundles. Burdened mules and two-wheeled carts creaking and groaning beneath possessions. No command was given, yet the Letherii shuffled to the roadsides, pulling whatever gear they had with them, as the column continued on. Eyes downcast, children held tight. Saying nothing at all.
Faradan Sort moved alongside Keneb. ‘This is odd,’ she said.
The Fist nodded. ‘They have the look of people fleeing something that’s already happened. Find one, Captain, and get some answers.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Studying the refugees he passed, Keneb wondered what was behind the glances a few of them furtively cast on these marching soldiers, these white-haired foreigners in their gleaming armour. Do they see saviours? Not a chance. Yet, where is the hostility? They are more frightened of what they’ve just left behind in Letheras than they are of us. What in Hood’s name is happening there?
And where are the Tiste Edur?
The crowds got thicker, more reluctant to move aside. Fiddler adjusted the pack on his shoulder and settled a hand on the grip of his shortsword. The column’s pace had slowed, and the sergeant could feel the growing impatience among his troops.
They could see the end-Hood’s breath-it was behind that white wall to the northeast, now a league or less distant. The imperial road stretching down towards them from a main gate was, in the red glare of sunset, a seething serpent. Pouring out by the thousands.
And why?
Riots, apparently. An economy in ruins, people facing starvation.
‘Never knew we could cause such trouble, eh Fid?’
‘Can’t be us, Cuttle. Not just us, I mean. Haven’t you noticed? There are no Tiste Edur in this crowd. Now, either they’ve retreated behind their estate walls, or to the palace keep or whatever it is where the Emperor lives, or they were the first to run.’
‘Like those behind us, then. Heading back to their homelands in the north.’
‘Maybe.’
‘So, if this damned empire is already finished, why are we bothering with the capital?’
Fiddler shrugged. ‘Bottle might have hidden one of his rats in the Adjunct’s hair-why not ask him?’
‘Adjunct ain’t got enough hair for that,’ Cuttle muttered, though he did glance back at the squad mage. Bottle did not deign to reply. ‘See anybody on those walls, Fid? My eyes are bad in bad light.’
‘If there are, they’re not holding torches,’ Fiddler replied.
There had been so little time to think. About anything, beyond just staying alive. Ever since the damned coast. But now, as he walked on this road, Fiddler found his thoughts wandering dusty paths. They had set out on this invasion in the name of vengeance. And, maybe, to eradicate a tyrannical Emperor who viewed anyone not his subject as meat for the butcher’s cleaver. All very well, as far as it goes. Besides, that hardly makes this Emperor unique.
So why is this our battle? And where in Hood’s name do we go from here? He so wanted to believe the Adjunct knew what she was doing. And that, whatever came and however it ended, there would be some meaning to what they did.
‘We must be our own witness.’ To what, dammit?
‘Soldiers on the wall,’ Koryk called out. ‘Not many, but they see us clear enough.’
Fiddler sighed. First to arrive, and maybe that’s as far as we’ll get. An army of eight hundred camped outside one gate. They must be pissing in their boots. He drew another deep breath, then shook himself. ‘Fair enough. We finally got an appreciative audience.’