He'd walked the refugee camp at night, wandering between the ragged rows of tents, lean-tos and canopied wagons, his eyes taking in all that he saw with perverse detachment. The historian, now witness, stumbling in the illusion that he will survive. Long enough to set the details down on parchment in the frail belief that truth is a worthwhile cause. That the tale will become a lesson heeded. Frail belief? Outright lie, a delusion of the worst sort. The lesson of history is that no-one learns.
Children were dying. He'd crouched, one hand on a mother's shoulder, and watched with her as life ebbed from the baby in her arms. Like the light of an oil lamp, dimming, dimming, winking out. The moment when the struggle's already lost, surrendered, and the tiny heart slows in its own realization, then stops in mute wonder. And never stirs again. It was then that pain filled the vast caverns within the living, destroying all it touched with its rage at inequity.
No match for the mother's tears, he'd moved on. Wandering, smeared in dirt, sweat and blood, he was becoming a spectral presence, a self-proclaimed pariah. He'd stopped attending Coltaine's nightly sessions, despite direct orders to the contrary. Accompanied only by List, he rode with the Wickans, to the flanks and to the rear, he marched with the Seventh, with the Hissari Loyals, the Marines, the sappers, the nobles and the mud-bloods – as the lowborn refugees had taken to calling themselves.
Through it all he said little, his presence becoming commonplace enough to permit a relaxation among the people around him. No matter what the depredations, there always seemed energy enough to expend in opinions.
Coltaine's a demon in truth, Laseen's dark joke on us all. He's in league with Kamist Reloe and Sha'ik – this uprising is naught but an elaborate charade since Hood's come to embrace the realm of humans. We've bowed to our skull-faced patron, and in return for all this spilled blood Coltaine, Sha'ik and Laseen will all ascend to stand alongside the Shrouded One.
Hood reveals himself in the flight of these capemoths – he shows his face again and again, greeting each dusk with a hungry grin in the dimming sky.
The Wickans have made a pact with the earth spirits. We're here to make fertile soil—
You've taken the wrong path with that, friend. We're sport for the Whirlwind goddess, nothing more. We are a lesson drawn long in the telling.
The Council of Nobles are eating children.
Where did you hear that?
Someone stumbled onto a grisly feast last night. The Council's petitioned dark Elder gods in order to stay fat—
To what?
Fat, I said. Truth. And now bestial spirits wander the camp at night, collecting children dead or near enough to dead to make no difference, except those ones are juicier.
You've gone mad—
He may have something there, friend! I myself saw picked and gnawed bones this morning, all in a heap – no skulls but the bones looked human enough, only very small. Wouldn't you do for a roasted baby right now, eh? Instead of the half-cup of brown sludge we're getting these days?
I heard Aren's army is only days away, led by Pormqual himself. He's got a legion of demons with him, too—
Sha'ik's dead – you heard the Semk wailing into the night, didn't you? And now they wear greased ash like a second skin. Someone in the Seventh told me he came face to face with one at last night's ambush – the scrap at the dried-up waterhole. Said the Semk's eyes were black pits, dull as dusty stones, they were. Even when the soldier spitted the bastard on his sword, nothing showed in those eyes. I tell you, Sha'ik's dead.
Ubaryd's been liberated. We're going to swing south any day now – you'll see – it's the only thing that makes sense. There's nothing west of here. Nothing at all—
Nothing at all. . .
'Historian!'
That harsh Falari-accented shout came from the dust-covered rider angling his mount alongside Duiker. Captain Lull, Cartheron Wing, his long, red hair hanging in greasy strands from under his helmet. The historian blinked at him.
The grizzled soldier grinned. 'Word is, you've lost your way, old man.'
Duiker shook his head. 'I follow the train,' he said woodenly, wiping at the grit that stung his eyes.
'We've got a Tithansi warleader out there needs to be found, hunted down,' Lull said, eyes narrow on the historian. 'Sormo and Bult have volunteered some names for the task.'
'I shall dutifully record them in my List of the Fallen.'
The breath hissed between the captain's teeth. 'Abyss Below, old man, they ain't dead yet – we ain't dead yet, dammit! Anyway, I'm here to inform you that you've volunteered. We head out tonight, tenth bell. Gathering at Nil's hearth by the ninth.'
