Apsalar was backing towards him. Crokus stood motionless, the sword falling unheeded from his hands.
He finally saw the newcomer. Newcomers. Like a seething, lumpy black carpet, the D'ivers rolled over the cobbles. Rats, hundreds. Yet one. Hundreds? Thousands. Oh, Hood, I know of this one. 'Apsalar!'
She glanced at him, expressionless.
'In my saddlebag,' the sapper said. 'A cusser—'
'Not enough,' she said coolly. 'Too late anyway.'
'Not them. Us.'
Her reaction was a slow blink, then she stepped up to the gelding.
A stranger's voice rose above the wailing wind. 'Gryllen!'
Yes, that's the D'ivers's name. Gryllen, otherwise known as the Tide of Madness. Flushed out of Y'ghatan in the fire. Oh, it comes around, don't it just!
'Gryllen!' the voice bellowed again. 'Leave here, D'ivers!'
Hide-bound legs stepped into view. Fiddler looked up, saw an extraordinarily tall man, lean, wearing a faded Tano telaba. His skin was somewhere between grey and green, and he held in his long-fingered hands a recurved bow and a rune-wrapped arrow nocked and ready. His long, grey hair showed remnants of black dye, making his mane appear spotted. The sapper saw the ragged tips of tusks bulging the line of his thin lower lip. A ]hag. Didn't know they travelled this far east. Why in Hood's name that should matter, I don't know.
The Jhag took another step towards the heaving mass of rats that now covered what was left of the bear-killed horse and rider, and laid a hand on the shoulder of the mare. The trembling stilled. Apsalar stepped back, warily studying the stranger.
Gryllen was hesitating – Fiddler could not believe his eyes. He glanced again at the Jhag. Another figure had appeared beside the tall bowman. Short and wide as a siege engine, his skin a deep, warm brown, his black hair braided and studded with fetishes. If anything, his canines were bigger than his companion's, and looking much sharper. A Trell. A Jhag and a Trell. That rings a towerful of bells, if only I could get through the pain to spare it another thought.
'Your quarry has fled,' the Jhag said to Gryllen. 'These people here do not pursue the Trail of Hands. Moreover, I now protect them.'
The rats hissed and twittered in a deafening roar, and surged higher on the road. Dust-grey eyes glittered in a seething storm.
'Do not,' the Jhag said slowly, 'try my patience.'
A thousand bodies flinched. The tide withdrew, a wave of greasy fur. A moment later they were gone.
The Trell squatted beside Fiddler. 'You will live, soldier?'
'Seems I'll have to,' the sapper replied, 'if only to make some sense of what just happened. I should know you two, shouldn't I?'
The Trell shrugged. 'Can you stand?'
'Let's see.' He pulled an arm under him, pushed himself up an inch, then remembered nothing more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It is said that on the night of Kellanved and Dancer's Return, Malaz City was a maelstrom of sorcery and dire visitations. It is not a far reach to find one sustained in the belief that the assassinations were a messy, confused affair, and that success and failure are judgements dependent on one's perspective...
Conspiracies in the Imperium
Heboric
Coltaine had surprised them all. Leaving the footsoldiers of the Seventh to guard the taking-on of water at Dryj Spring, he had led his Wickans out onto the Odhan. Two hours after sunset, the Tithansi tribesmen, resting their horses by walking with lead reins over a league from the oasis, suddenly found themselves the centre of a closing-horseshoe charge. Few had time to so much as remount, much less wheel in formation to meet the attack. Though they outnumbered the Wickans seven to one, they broke, and died a hundred for every one of Coltaine's clan warriors who fell. Within two hours the slaughter was complete.
Riding the south road towards the oasis, Duiker had seen the glow from the Tithansi's burning wagons way off on his right. It was a long moment before he grasped what he was seeing. There was no question of riding into that conflagration. The Wickans rode the blood of butchery – they would not pause to think before taking him down. Instead he swung his mount northwest and rode at a canter until he ran into the first of the fleeing Tithansi, from whom he gleaned the story.
The Wickans were demons. They breathed fire. Their arrows magically multiplied in mid-air. Their horses fought with uncanny intelligence. A Mezla Ascendant had been conjured and sent to Seven Cities, and now faced the Whirlwind goddess. The Wickans could not be killed. There would never come another dawn.
Duiker left the man to whatever fate awaited him and rode back to the road, resuming his journey to the oasis. He had lost two hours, but had gleaned invaluable information amidst the Tithansi deserter's terror-spawned ravings.
