“Certainly,” said Weasel, “And after that I will go and ask Azaar if he can give you leave to take a nap for a few hours so you can sleep off the worst of the beer.”
“It wasn’t the beer,” said the Barbarian. “It was the roasted rat. I knew I should never have touched that bloody stew. Pigeon the innkeeper called it. Since when did pigeons have four legs?”
“It’s never the beer with you, is it? It’s always the stew.” The Barbarian glared at Weasel. As always his eyes were clear and he showed not the slightest ill-effect from the previous evening’s debauchery and brawling. How could he do that? They were the same age.
“Everybody knows that Southern cooking is unhealthy. Not like herring porridge and boiled beets. Why does the army always choose to march when I have a bloody hangover- that’s what I want to know? There’s never a time when it doesn’t. Regular as clockwork. I have a hangover. The army marches.”
“Maybe if you did not drink so much to celebrate our impending departure, you would not have one.”
“How come you don’t? Watering your wine again, sticking to small beer? That’s unhealthy, not to mention unmanly.”
“A man needs a clear head when he’s playing hookjack. Otherwise he’ll never spot cheats.”
“Whatever you say. I think it’s because you can’t take your drink anymore.”
Weasel grinned. “Not like you, eh?”
“I can drink any man half my age under the table.”
“Particularly when you pick the table up and smack it down on their heads.”
The Barbarian grinned, remembering. “I did, didn’t I? Teach the bastard to spill my beer.”
“That it did.”
“When do you think we’ll be stopping?”
“The usual time, an hour or two before sunset so we can make camp.”
“Bloody hell, another six hours of bloody fife music and bloody drums. I hope we meet some Easterners later in the day. I’ll be in the mood for killing then.”
“Best hope you are. There’s going to be a lot of it about before we’re done.”
The Barbarian cast a glance at the crowds on the walls. As always, he suspected they were happy to see the soldiers go, the ungrateful civilian bastards. Still, they’d some good times back there. “We had some good times back there,” he said.
“You mean killing deaders and fighting sorcerers?”
“No, I mean in the taverns, with the girls and the beer.”
“You always say that. Every time we leave a place, you say that. I wish I had a copper coin for every time I have heard you say that.”
“It’s because it’s usually true.”
“You’re not often right, but this time you are.”
“Think they have decent brothels in Sardea?”
“Let’s hope we’re alive to find out.”
He did not sound too hopeful which worried the Barbarian. Weasel was smarter than he was and knew about such things.
The village was quiet as a grave, possibly because all of the people were dead. Their corpses lay in the street, bloated and sick-smelling. A few had been gnawed by feral dogs and hungry rats which had died in turn. Tamara could tell because their corpses lay nearby.
Her steed was frightened, and only the spell of calmness she had laid on its mind kept it from bolting. She could see now where all the tales about the end of the world had come from, and why they were spreading so quickly.
These people had not died easily. Their faces, such as were left, were twisted in ghastly rictuses, their eyes were wide and their limbs contorted as if by terrible muscular spasms. She covered her mouth with a perfumed handkerchief and looked at the nearest corpse.
Its skin was pale and bruised in places. A bird had plucked out an eye. She wondered if there was anyone alive in the village. They might be able to tell her something, or she might find out for herself what the disease was if she could see some symptoms. So far all the dead had been human. Few of their diseases affected Terrarchs, and she was protected by medicinal spells so she was not particularly worried about falling ill herself.
Still, there was something about this place that set her trained senses on edge. Her fingers danced through the patterns of an augury as she muttered an invocation. At first, she noticed nothing, but then she found something just on the edge of her perception, so faint that if she had not been so keyed up she would probably have missed it. There was a very, very faint trace of magic in the air.
She shook her head, puzzled, wondering what it could be. Perhaps this village had been home to a sorcerer, or perhaps some wandering mage had passed through. Maybe someone owned a basic charm, or perhaps someone had purchased a ward against the plague. Finding the source of the magic was her best chance of finding someone alive in this Light-forsaken place.
She drew her blade, unsure as to why, but trusting her instincts. She wanted to get back on the steed and leave. Something made her uneasy and she doubted it was the sight of all the dead bodies. The old weapon felt reassuringly heavy in her grasp. She extended her senses as she had been taught, looking for signs of life, of ambush, of danger.
The breeze whispered through the streets. Somewhere a shutter banged, and an unlatched door creaked in the wind. She caught the sound of movement, faint and furtive. Perhaps it was rats but it never paid to make assumptions in a situation like this.
She concentrated again on her divination and sensed the faint magic once more. She moved around an old stone building and saw a doorway before her. A crudely painted sign depicting a rampant bull hung over the door. The picture was old and flaking away from exposure to the elements. The doorway beneath it yawned like an open mouth. From it came a smell of corruption and decay. From within she sensed movement. A man moved behind the bar, perhaps seeking liquor on the shelves. Under the circumstances she could hardly blame him.
She entered the building and saw a group of men slumped over a table. A huge bald-pated bruiser was behind the bar. He moved slowly as if his limbs were twisted or broken and she wondered if he were just beginning to come down with the plague.
Even as that thought occurred to her, she realised that something was wrong, that he was the source of the magic she had detected. He turned to face her, his eyes flaring greenly, the skin peeling from his face to reveal yellowing teeth. His skin was blotched with mould and something else, and he looked as if he had been dead for quite some time.
“Hungry,” he said. Her sword swept out and took his head off. She turned to leave. This was not a place for the living.
Chapter Nine
The great wyrm waddled along the Eastern road, a huge reptilian ship carried along by the current of troops. Halim was a week’s march behind them, lost behind ranges of hills. In the howdah, Asea sat under a parasol reading. Rik envied her the ability to do that. His mind raced even as he tried to keep still. He was reminded of their barge trip to Harven. That had not ended well either.
Without looking up Asea said: “You are restless.”
“I am.”
“You could try reviewing the meditation exercises I taught you.”
“I have. This bloody potion makes it difficult to concentrate.”
“All the more reason to practise. It is not always possible to work sorcery under ideal circumstances.”
“I take your point.” He said the words slowly and with emphasis. She sighed and closed the book.
“But you are not willing to act upon it.”
“There are times when it’s difficult to concentrate and this is one of them.”
“You are normally a very focussed young man, Rik. It’s what makes you such an apt pupil. Tell me, what is disturbing you?”
“Everything. Nothing. Nothing I can put my finger on anyway. It’s just that my life — all our lives — seem to be spinning out of control. We are marching to war in the East just as if I were still in the army.”