The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (177 page)

A few moments later the wheel reached the line, broke apart and melted into it. The Wickans dug spurs into their lathered horses to race southward. Duiker pushed his way through the ranks until he stumbled into the clear. He lowered his quivering arms, spat blood onto the ground, then slowly raised his head.

The mass of refugees marched before him, a procession grinding past the spot where he stood. Wreathed in dust, hundreds of faces were turned in his direction, watching that thin cordon of infantry behind him—all that lay between them and slaughter—as it surged, buckled and grew ever thinner with each minute that passed. The faces were expressionless, driven to a place beyond thought and beyond emotion. They were part of a tidal flow where no ebb was possible, where to drop back too far was fatal, and so they stumbled on, clutching the last and most precious of their possessions: their children.

Two figures approached Duiker, coming down alongside the stream of refugees from the vanguard position. The historian stared at them blankly, sensing that he should recognize the two—but every face had become a stranger's face.

“Historian!”

The voice jarred him out of his fugue. His split lip stung as he said, “Captain Lull.”

A webbed jug was thrust at him. Duiker forced his short sword back into its scabbard and accepted the jug. The cool water filled his mouth with pain but he ignored it, drinking deep.

“We've reached Geleen Plain,” Lull said.

The other person was Duiker's nameless marine. She wavered where she stood, and the historian saw a vicious puncture wound in her left shoulder, where a lance-point had slipped over her shield. Broken rings from her armor glittered in the gaping hole.

Their eyes met. Duiker saw nothing still alive in those once beautiful light-gray eyes, yet the alarm he felt within him came not from what he saw, but from his own lack of shock, the frightening absence of all feeling—even dismay.

“Coltaine wants you,” Lull said.

“He's still breathing, is he?”

“Aye.”

“I imagine he wants this.” Duiker pulled free the small glass bottle on its silver chain. “Here—”

“No,” Lull said, frowning. “Wants you, Historian. We've run into a tribe of the Sanith Odhan—so far they're just watching.”

“Seems the rebellion's a less certain thing down here,” Duiker muttered.

Sounds of battle along the flanking line diminished. Another pause, a few heartbeats in which to recover, to repair armor, quench bleeding.

The captain gestured and they began walking alongside the refugees.

“What tribe, then?” the historian asked after a moment. “And, more importantly, what's it got to do with me?”

“The Fist has reached a decision,” Lull said.

Something in those words chilled Duiker. He thought to probe for more, yet dismissed the notion. The details of that decision belonged to Coltaine.
The man leads an army that refuses to die. We've not lost a refugee to enemy action in thirty hours. Five thousand soldiers…spitting in the face of every god…

“What do you know of the tribes this close to the city?” Lull asked as they continued on.

“They've no love of Aren,” Duiker said.

“Worse for them under the Empire?”

The historian grunted, seeing the direction the captain pursued in his questions. “No, better. The Malazan Empire understands borderlands, the different needs of those living in the countryside—vast territories in the Empire, after all, remain nomadic, and the tribute demanded is never exorbitant. More, payment for passage across tribal lands is always generous and prompt. Coltaine should know this well enough, Captain.”

“I imagine he does—I'm the one that needs convincing.”

Duiker glanced at the refugees on their left, scanning the row upon row of faces, young and old, within the ever-present shroud of dust. Thoughts pushed past weariness, and Duiker felt himself tottering on an edge, beyond which—he could now clearly see—waited Coltaine's desperate gamble.

The Fist has reached a decision
.

And his officers balk, flinch back overwhelmed with uncertainty. Has Coltaine succumbed to despair? Or does he see all too well?

Five thousand soldiers…

“What can I say to you, Lull?” Duiker asked.

“That there's no choice left.”

“You can answer that yourself.”

“I dare not.” The man grimaced, his scarred face twisting, his lone eye narrowing amidst a nest of wrinkles. “It's the children, you see. It's what they have left—the last thing they have left. Duiker—”

The historian's abrupt nod cut out the need to say anything more—a swiftly granted mercy. He'd seen those faces, had come close to studying them—as if, he'd thought at the time, seeking to find the youth that belonged there, the freedom and innocence—but that was not what he sought, nor what he found. Lull had led him to the word itself. Simple, immutable, thus far still sacrosanct.

Five thousand soldiers will give their lives for it. But is this some kind of romantic foolishness—do I yearn for recognition among these simple soldiers? Is any soldier truly simple—simple in the sense of having a spare, pragmatic way of seeing the world and his place in it? And does such a view preclude the profound awareness I now believe exists in these battered, footsore men and women?

Duiker swung his gaze to his nameless marine, and found himself meeting those remarkable eyes, as if she had but waited for him—his thoughts, doubts and fears—to come around, to seek her.

She shrugged. “Are we so blind that we cannot see it, Duiker? We defend their
dignity
. There, simple as that. More, it is our strength. Is this what you wished to hear?”

I'll accept that minor castigation. Never underestimate a soldier
.

 

Sanimon itself was a massive tel, a flat-topped hill half a mile across and over thirty arm-spans high, its jumbled plateau barren and windswept. In the Sanith Odhan immediately south of it, where the Chain now struggled, two ancient raised roads remained from the time when the tel had been a thriving city. Both roads ran straight as spears on solid cut-stone foundations; the one to the west—now unused as it led to another tel in hills bone dry and nowhere else—was called Painesan'm. The other, Sanijhe'm, stretched southwest and still provided an overland route to the inland sea called Clatar. At a height of fifteen arm-spans, the roads had become causeways.

Coltaine's Crow Clan commanded Sanijhe'm near the tel, manning it as if it was a wall. The southern third of Sanimon itself was now a Wickan strongpoint, with warriors and archers of the Foolish Dog and Weasel clans. As the refugees were led along the east edge of Sanimon, the tel's high cliff wall obviated the need for a flanking guard on that side. Troops moved to support the rearguard and the eastern flank. Korbolo Dom's forces, which had been engaged in a running battle with both elements, had their noses bloodied once again. The Seventh was still something to behold, despite its diminished numbers, soldiers among it pitching dead to the ground without a visible wound on them, others wailing and weeping even as they slayed their foes. The arrival of mounted Wickan archers completed the rout, and the time had come once more for rest.

Fist Coltaine stood waiting, alone, facing the odhan to the south. His feather cloak fluttered in the wind, its ragged edges shivering in the air's breath. Lining a ridge of hills in that direction, two thousand paces distant, another tribe sat their horses, barbaric war standards motionless against the pale-blue sky.

Duiker's gaze held on the man as they approached. He tried to put himself inside Coltaine's skin, to find the place where the Fist now lived—and flinched back in his mind.
No, not a failure of imagination on my part. An unwillingness. I can carry no one else's burden—not even for a moment. We are all pulled inside ourselves now, each alone…

Coltaine spoke without turning. “The Kherahn Dhobri—or so they are named on the map.”

“Aren's reluctant neighbors,” Duiker said.

The Fist turned at that, his eyes sharp. “We have ever held to our treaties,” he said.

“Aye, Fist, we have—to the outrage of many Aren natives.”

Coltaine faced the distant tribe again, silent for a long minute.

The historian glanced at his nameless marine. “You should seek out a cutter,” he said.

“I can still hold a shield—”

“No doubt, but it's the risk of infection…”

Her eyes widened and Duiker was felled mute, a rush of sorrow flooding him. He broke the gaze.
You're a fool, old man
.

Coltaine spoke. “Captain Lull.”

“Fist.”

“Are the wagons ready?”

“Aye, sir. Coming up now.”

Coltaine nodded. “Historian.”

“Fist?”

The Wickan slowly turned round to face Duiker. “I give you Nil and Nether, a troop from the three clans. Captain, has Commander Bult informed the wounded?”

“Aye, sir, and they have refused you.”

The skin tightened around Coltaine's eyes, but then he slowly nodded.

“As has,” Lull continued, looking at Duiker, “Corporal List.”

“I admit,” the Fist sighed, “those I selected from my own people are none too pleased—yet they will not disobey their warleader. Historian, you shall command as you see fit. Your responsibility, however, is singular. Deliver the refugees to Aren.”

And so we come to this
. “Fist—”

“You are Malazan,” Coltaine cut in. “Follow the prescribed procedures—”

“And if we are betrayed?”

The Wickan smiled. “Then we all join Hood, here in one place. If there must be an end to this, let it be fitting.”

“Hold on as long as you can,” Duiker whispered. “I'll skin Pormqual's face and give the order through his lips if I have to—”

“Leave the High Fist to the Empress—and her Adjunct.”

The historian reached for the glass bottle around his neck.

Coltaine shook his head. “This tale is yours, Historian, and right now, no one is more important than you. And if you one day see Dujek, tell him this: it is not the Empire's soldiers the Empress cannot afford to lose, it is its memory.”

A troop of Wickans rode toward them, leading spare mounts—including Duiker's faithful mare. Beyond them, the lead wagons of the refugees emerged from the dust, and off to one side waited three additional wagons, guarded—Duiker could see—by Nil and Nether.

The historian drew a deep breath. “About Corporal List—”

“He will not be swayed,” Captain Lull cut in. “He asked that I pass on his words of farewell, Duiker. I believe he muttered something about a ghost at his shoulder, whatever that means, then he said: ‘Tell the historian that I have found my war.' ”

Coltaine looked away as if those words had struck through to him where all other words could not. “Captain, inform the companies: we attack within the hour.”

Attack. Hood's breath!
Duiker felt awkward in his own body, his hands like leaden lumps at his sides, as if the question of what to do with his own flesh and bone—what to do in the next moment—had driven him to a crisis.

Lull's voice broke through. “Your horse has arrived, Historian.”

Duiker released a shaky breath. Facing the captain, he slowly shook his head. “Historian? No, perhaps I shall return to being a historian a week from now. But at this moment, and for what's to come…” He shook his head a second time. “I have no word for what I should be called right now.” He smiled. “I think ‘old man' suffices—”

Lull seemed rattled by Duiker's smile. The captain faced Coltaine. “Fist, this man feels he has no title. He's chosen ‘old man.' ”

“A poor choice,” the Wickan growled. “Old men are wise—not fools.” He scowled at Duiker. “There is not one among your acquaintances who struggles with who and what you are. We know you as a soldier. Does that title insult you, sir?”

Duiker's eyes narrowed. “No. At least, I don't think so.”

“Lead the refugees to safety, soldier.”

“Yes, Fist.”

The nameless marine spoke. “I have something for you, Duiker.”

Lull grunted. “What, here?”

She handed him a tatter of cloth. “Wait a while before you read what's on it. Please.”

He could only nod as he tucked the scrap in his belt. He looked at the three figures before him, wishing Bult and List had been present for this, but there would be no staged goodbyes, no comfort of roles to step into. Like everything else, the moment was messy, awkward and incomplete.

“Get on that scrawny beast of yours,” Lull said. “And stay in Hood's blindside, friend.”

“I wish the same for you, all of you.”

Coltaine hissed, wheeling to face north. He bared his teeth. “Not a chance of that, Duiker. We intend to carve a bloody path…right down the bastard's throat.”

 

Flanked by Nil and Nether, Duiker rode at the head of the refugee train, heading toward the tribe on the ridge. The Wickan outriders and those guarding the selected wagons that trundled directly ahead were all very young—boys and girls still with their first weapons. Their collective outrage at having been sent from their clans was a silent storm.

Yet, if Coltaine has erred in this gamble, they will wield those weapons one more time…one last time
.

“Two riders,” Nil said.

“Good sign,” Duiker grunted, eyes focusing on the Kherahn pair that now approached at a canter. Both were elders, a man and a woman, lean and weathered, their skin the same hue as the buckskins that clothed them. Hook-bladed swords were slung under their left arms and ornate iron helmets covered their heads; their eyes were framed in robust cheek-plates.