Orb Sceptre Throne (50 page)

He turned on one of the city Wardens sent to escort him to the docks. ‘This is supposed to be a diplomatic mission,’ he hissed, struggling to keep his voice low. ‘I can’t go on this tub!’

One of the guards tucked a folded pinch of leaves into a cheek and leaned against piled crates. ‘It’s a secret mission, Councillor,’ he drawled.

Torvald tried his best superior glare but the fellow was clearly indifferent. ‘If it’s so secret then how come you know about it? And don’t call me Councillor.’

A lazy roll of the shoulders from the man. ‘Orders.’

Torvald began to wonder just what those orders were.
See him from the city even if it means throwing him from the docks
, perhaps. He picked up his heavy travelling bag and slipped its strap over a shoulder. ‘Fine. Secret. Tell your superiors you saw me off then,’ he said, and headed up the gangway.

The small deck was crammed with goods. Pigs squealed, terrified, sheep bawled, and caged birds gabbled. All this did nothing for the state of the decking. The only available space was a suspiciously clear arc surrounding two figures sitting against the side close to the bow. Torvald could well understand the avoidance: one of them was a giant of a fellow with a massive tangle of hair and beard all unkempt together like a great mane of dirty blond and grey. His shoulders were titanic, his upper arms as massive as Torvald’s own thighs, and his chest swept out like a barrel. Torvald thought him perhaps a travelling strongman. The fellow next to him was a skinny Rhivi tribesman elder looking particularly frail in such company. To Torvald the two would have appeared a far more intimidating pair if the big fellow hadn’t been so clearly absorbed in studying the city, laid out pink and golden in the dawn’s light, climbing in cliff ridge over cliff ridge to Majesty Hill beyond. The old fellow was clearly sick as a dog, bleary-eyed and pale.

But then Torvald had travelled for a time in the company of someone who could arguably be named the most intimidating figure these lands had ever met. He dropped his bag and leaned up against the side. ‘Not going to try your luck?’ he said to the big fellow.

The man’s gaze swung to him and Torvald suppressed a flinch when he saw the bestial eyes, the irises oddly shaped, and felt the plain sheer weight of the man’s regard. The fellow cocked one thick brow, rumbled, ‘How’s that?’

Torvald found his throat suddenly dry. ‘The city … they’re always hungry for new acts.’

‘Acts?’ the man slowly enunciated, his voice hardening.

‘You know … bending bars, breaking chains.’

Both brows rose as comprehension dawned and the fellow eased back, relaxing. ‘Ah. No.’ He crooked a small nostalgic smile. ‘Been a lot of years since I’ve had to do any of that.’

Somehow, Torvald felt immense relief. ‘I’m sorry – I thought …’

The man raised a gnarled hand to forestall any further explanation. ‘I understand.’ The fierce eyes looked him up and down. ‘What are you doing on a tub like this?’

My point exactly
. Torvald offered an indifferent shrug. ‘First boat leaving.’

‘And far from the fastest,’ the man rumbled.

Unformed suspicions writhed anew in Torvald’s stomach and he glanced over to see the two city Wardens, who, grinning, offered lazy waves of farewell.

Gods curse the Legate!

The gangway scraped up and wharf hands threw off the lines. Two of the crew pushed off with poles while others set the single lateen-rigged sail. The menagerie of animals squealed and voided anew.

Torvald threw himself down against the side, rested his arms on his knees.
Burn’s love. Did I just sell myself on to a slow boat to nowhere for the price of a bright certificate and an empty fancy title?
He pressed his hands to his head.

Lim has just rid himself of an irritating new councillor
.

‘Love or coin?’ A quavering thin voice spoke up.

Torvald raised his head to see the Rhivi elder studying him from around the great bulk of his companion. ‘I’m sorry …?’

‘Your reasons for travel – if you would speak of them. In my experience a man travels for one of two reasons. A powerful husband or a powerful debt.’

Torvald snorted a self-mocking laugh. ‘No. Nothing so romantic. Just a plain old powerful political rival.’

The big fellow now eyed him sidelong, his gaze narrow. ‘Really?’ he rumbled.

The lazy silt-laden stream that ran into Lake Azur at Dhavran hardly deserved a name. Some called it the Red, others the Muddy. In any case, it was a barrier of a sort. Over the years a crossing had been constructed of stones and garbage capped by a simple bridge of laid logs packed with dirt. Fist K’ess eyed the mud-choked channel and thought it the most pathetic crossing he’d ever seen.

‘Do we defend here?’ Captain Fal-ej asked. Her tone more than made clear her own disenchantment.

K’ess adjusted his seat astride his mount. He’d been too long out of the saddle and his thighs were scraped raw. For a time he eyed the troops marching on to the short causeway.
Not enough to make a stand. And Dhavran? This collection of mud and wood huts doesn’t boast one defensible position
.

He sipped some water from a skin hung on his saddle then sucked his teeth. At first he’d considered heading west into the Moranth mountains to wait things out there. But then a rider had arrived from Captain Goyan’s contingent: they were moving on. And why? Word had come from the Fifth. Fist Steppen moving north. Rendezvous south of Dhavran.

All very well and good. Altogether they might field close to ten thousand. Every remaining Malazan trooper south of Cat. Enough for him to finally unclench his anxious buttocks for a moment or two.

But before he could allow himself that one moment of relaxation reports arrived from loyal Barghast scouts in the eastward foothills of the Tahlyn range: a large force moving west. Rhivi tribals, apparently. Some three days out and moving far faster than they.

It was a race he knew he wouldn’t win. Thus the hope of contesting the crossing here at Dhavran. And thus his disappointment.

He straightened in his stirrups for a moment to adjust the sweaty leathers beneath his mail skirting. He eyed Fal-ej while she watched the troops march. Her helmet hung from her pommel and she’d wrapped a scarf around her head in the style of her homeland, Seven Cities. A handsome woman. Damned smart. But a touch sharp-edged. Haughty, some of the officers thought her, he knew. But not he. Good wide hips on her too. Fit for throwing out sons, as his ma would’ve said. Woman like that ought to have someone to hold on to.

‘Sir?’ she said. Her gaze had moved to him, questioning.

He cleared his throat. ‘We keep going. Double-time. This place is too wretched.’

She nodded her curt assent, relieved. ‘Yes, Fist.’

K’ess plucked at the gauntlets he held in one hand. ‘Fal-ej …’ he began.

‘Yes, Fist?’ she answered quickly.

He slapped the gauntlets to his armoured thigh. ‘Nothing. It’s not important.’ He waved towards the stream. ‘Keep the sappers on that ramshackle excuse for a bridge. The last thing we need is for it to fall apart under us.’

Fal-ej saluted, kneed her mount into motion. ‘Yes, Fist.’

He watched her go, frowning at himself.
Now’s not the time – what with a horde of Rhivi closing in on us
. He sighed.

Captain Fal-ej urged her mount down the stream’s oversized channel more savagely than she intended. Remember your priorities, woman, she castigated herself.
By the Seven False Gods, what’s gotten into you? Hanging about like a mare in heat. It must be offensive to the man
.

She pulled up next to a bridge picket, demanded, ‘Where are the damned saboteurs, trooper?’

The man saluted twice for good measure. He pointed vaguely down towards the stream. ‘Thought I saw them headin’ off that way, Captain, sir …’

Fal-ej yanked the reins over, kneed the mount onward.
Has the responsibility of every soldier on his shoulders, woman! Not likely to allow himself to be distracted – and hardly by a figure such as yourself! Calluses on your cheeks from the helmet. Stink of sweat always on you. Arms like some blacksmith’s!

Cresting a grassed sandbar she spotted the crew squatting around a campfire, gutted fish on sticks over the flames. She slapped her mount down towards the stream and pulled up, kicking mud over them. ‘What is this?’

The marine sergeant, a great fat woman, merely peered up unperturbed. ‘Just havin’ a bite, Cap’n.’

‘You were
ordered
to keep an eye on the bridge.’

‘Bridge is good as beer, Cap’n. Nothin’ there to break. Just big ol’ logs.’

Fal-ej glared down at them. ‘Well … just the same, stay on it! Something might give.’

The sergeant rubbed a large black mole on one cheek, considering. ‘Such as …?’

Fal-ej threw her arms out wide. ‘How in the name of Ehrlitan should I know!
I’m
not the engineer. Now get going!’

Frowning her agreement, the sergeant motioned to a trooper. ‘Whitey, take your team over.’

‘Aw, c’mon, Sarge. Fish is almost ready.’

The sergeant’s voice took on an edge. ‘Get going …
now
.’

‘Fine!’ The man straightened to slap dirt off his hide trousers, motioned his team up. The sergeant turned to the captain, cocked a brow and saluted.

Fal-ej answered the salute and yanked her mount round. ‘Thank you, sergeant.’ She rode off kicking up more mud.

‘What’s gotten under her saddle?’ a trooper muttered. ‘Martinet bitch.’

‘Naw,’ the sergeant said as she watched the woman go, a hand shading her gaze. ‘Ain’t nothing a good humping wouldn’t cure.’

‘Sarge!’ one trooper groaned. ‘Do you
have
to?’

‘That’s your answer for everything,’ another complained.

The sergeant turned, rubbing her hands together. ‘Yes indeed – too bad none of you poor excuses are up to it.’

‘Oh, don’t go on about the damned Moranth. We don’t believe none o’ those stories.’

‘Now don’t go and just kill everyone, okay!’ Yusek snarled over her shoulder as they struggled up the narrow mountain trail.

‘You exaggerate,’ Sall answered calmly.

‘No, I do
not
fucking exaggerate! Someone raises a cooking ladle your way and you two butcher two hundred! Try to show a little respect. This is some kinda monastery or something.’

‘If they are unarmed they have nothing to fear from us.’

She snorted her scorn. Pausing, she glanced further down to distant Lo making his way up after them.
No sign of sweat or labour on either of them!
No shortage of breath. Yusek, for her part, felt light-headed and nauseous with the height.
Gods. Never been this high before. They say the air is poisonous up here. Kill you as sure as a blade to the heart
.

Swallowing to wet her rasping throat she glanced ahead to the monastery walls of heaped cobbles. Tattered prayer flags snapped in the cold wind. White tendrils of smoke blew here and there from cook-fires. Overhead a clear, painfully bright blue sky domed the world. Beautiful, in its way, but for a faint green blemish across its vault – the Scimitar of a god’s vengeance, some named that banner.

A monk, or acolyte, or whatever you would call him, met them at the stone arch that was the compound’s entrance. Yusek took the shaven-headed slim figure for a boy until she spoke, revealing her sex. ‘Enter, please, the adytum. We offer food, shelter, and peace for contemplation to all who would enter.’