This, the historian realized as he rode on, was more than the simple lashing-out of a wounded, tormented beast. Coltaine clearly did not view the situation in that way. Perhaps he never did. The Fist was conducting a campaign. Engaged in a war, not a panicked flight. The leaders of the Apocalypse had better reorder their thoughts, if they're to hold any hope of wresting the fangs from this serpent. More, they'd better kill the notion evidently already rampant that the Wickans were more than just human, and that's easier said than done.
Kamist Reloe still retained superior numbers, but the quality of the troops was beginning to tell – Coltaine's Wickans were disciplined in their mayhem, and the Seventh was a veteran force that the new Fist had taken pains in preparing for this kind of war. There was still the likelihood that the Malazan forces would be destroyed eventually – if things were as bad elsewhere, there'd be little hope for the stranded army and the thousands of refugees that clung to it. All these minor victories cannot win the war – Reloe's potential recruits number in the hundreds of thousands – assuming Sha'ik recognizes the threat Coltaine poses and sends them in pursuit of the High Fist.
When he came within sight of the small oasis surrounding Dryj Spring, he was shocked to see that almost every palm tree had been cut down. The stands were gone, leaving only stumps and low plants. Smoke drifted over the area, ghostly under the paling sky. Duiker rose in his stirrups, scanning for campfires, pickets, the tents of the encampment. Nothing . . . perhaps on the other side of the spring . . .
The smoke thickened as he rode into the oasis, his mount picking its way around the hacked stumps. There were signs everywhere – first the pits dug into the sand by the outlying picket stations, then the deep ruts where wagons had been positioned in a defensive line. In the hearth-places only smouldering ashes remained.
Dumbfounded and suddenly exhausted, Duiker let his horse wander through the abandoned camp. The deep sinkhole beyond was the spring – it had been virtually emptied and was only now beginning to refill: a small brownish pool surrounded by the mud-coated husks of palm bark and rotting fronds. Even the fish had been taken.
While the Wickan horsewarriors had set off to ambush the Tithansi, the Seventh and the refugees had already left the oasis. The historian struggled to comprehend that fact. He envisioned the scene of departure, the stumbling, red-eyed refugees, children piled onto wagons, the stricken gazes of the veteran soldiers guarding the exodus. Coltaine gave them no rest, no pause to assimilate the shock, to come to terms with all that had happened, was happening. They'd arrived, stripped the oasis of water and everything else that might prove useful, then they'd left.
Where?
Duiker nudged his mount forward. He came to the oasis's southwestern edge, his eyes tracking the wide swath left behind by the wagons, cattle and horses. Off to the southeast rose the weathered range of the Lador Hills. Westward stretched the Tithansi Steppes. Nothing in that direction until the Sekala River – too far for Coltaine to contemplate. If northwest, then the village of Manot, and beyond that, Caron Tepasi, on the coast of the Karas Sea. Almost as far as Sekala River. The trail led due west, into the steppes. Hood's breath, there's nothing there!
There seemed little point in trying to anticipate the Wickan Fist. The historian wheeled back to the spring and stiffly dismounted, wincing at the ache in his hips and thighs, the dull throb in his lower back. He could go no farther, nor could his horse. They needed to rest – and they needed the soupy water at the bottom of the lakebed.
He removed his bedroll from the saddle, tossing it onto the leaf-strewn sand. Unhitching the mare's girth strap, he slid the ornate saddle from its sweat-covered back. Taking the reins, he led the animal down to the water.
The spring had been plugged with rocks, which explained its slowed trickle. Duiker removed his scarf and strained the water through the fabric into his helmet. He let the horse drink first, then repeated the filtering process before quenching his own thirst and refilling his canteen.
He fed the mare from the bag of grain strapped to the saddle, then rubbed the beast down before turning his attention to setting up his own makeshift camp. He wondered whether he would ever rejoin Coltaine and the army; whether, perhaps, he was trapped in some nightmarish pursuit of ghosts. Maybe they are demons, after all. His weariness was getting the better of him.
Duiker laid out the bedroll, then rigged over it a sunshade using his telaba. Without the trees the sun would scorch this oasis – it would be years in recovering, if it ever did. Before sleep took him, he thought long on the war to come. Cities meant less than did sources of water. Armies would have to occupy oases, which would become as important as islands in a vast sea. Coltaine would ever be at a disadvantage – his every destination known, his every approach prepared for ... provided Kamist Reloe can get to them first, and how can he fail in that? He doesn't have thousands of refugees to escort. For all the Fist's surprises, Coltaine was tactically constrained.
