The red-bearded man grinned. 'Seems you've earned a place with the best, old man.'
'Hood's breath! I'll not last five minutes in a line of battle. My heart nearly gave out after a skirmish lasting all of three breaths the other night—'
'We won't be front line,' Lull said. 'There ain't enough of us left for that. If all goes as planned we won't even get our swords nicked.'
'Oh, very well.' Duiker turned to Coltaine. 'Returning the servants to the nobles was a mistake,' he said. 'It seems the noble-born have concluded that you'll not take them away again if they're not fit to stand.'
Bult said, 'They showed spine, those servants, at Sekala Crossing. Just holding shields, mind, but hold is what they did.'
'Uncle, do you still have that scroll demanding compensation?' Coltaine asked.
'Aye.'
'And that compensation was calculated based on the worth of each servant, in coin?'
Bult nodded.
'Collect the servants and pay for them in full, in gold jakatas.'
'Aye, though all that gold will burden the nobles sorely.'
'Better them than us.'
Lull cleared his throat. 'That coin's the soldiers' pay, ain't it?'
'The Empire honours its debts,' Coltaine growled.
It was a statement that promised to grow in resonance in the time to come, and the momentary silence in the tent told Duiker that he was not alone in that recognition.
Capemoths swarmed across the face of the moon. Duiker sat beside the flaked embers of a cooking fire. A nervous energy had driven the historian from his bedroll. On all sides the camp slept, a city exhausted. Even the animals had fallen silent.
Rhizan swept through the warm air above the hearth, plucking hovering insects on the wing. The soft crunch of exoskeletons was a constant crackle.
A dark shape appeared at Duiker's side, lowered itself into a squat, held silent.
After a while, Duiker said, 'A Fist needs his rest.'
Coltaine grunted. 'And a historian?'
'Never rests.'
'We are denied in our needs,' the Wickan said.
'It was ever thus.'
'Historian, you joke like a Wickan.'
'I've made a study of Bult's lack of humour.'
'That much is patently clear.'
There was silence between them for a time. Duiker could make no claim to know the man at his side. If the Fist was plagued by doubts he did not show it, nor, of course, would he. A commander could not reveal his flaws. With Coltaine, however, it was more than his rank dictating his recalcitrance. Even Bult had occasion to mutter that his nephew was a man who isolated himself to levels far beyond the natural Wickan stoicism.
Coltaine never made speeches to his troops, and while he was often seen by his soldiers, he did not make a point of it as many commanders did. Yet those soldiers belonged to him now, as if the Fist could fill every silent space with a physical assurance as solid as a gripping of forearms.
What happens the day that faith is shattered? What if we are but hours from that day?
'The enemy hunts our scouts,' Coltaine said. 'We cannot see what has been prepared for us in the valley ahead.'
'Sormo's allies?'
'The spirits are preoccupied.'
Ah, the Semk godling.
'Can'eld, Debrahl, Tithan, Semk, Tepasi, Halafan, Ubari, Hissari, Sialk and Guran.'
Four tribes now. Six city legions. Am I hearing doubt?
The Fist spat into the embers. 'The army that awaits us is one of two holding the south.'
How in Hood's name does he know this? 'Has Sha'ik marched out of Raraku, then?'
'She has not. A mistake.'
'What holds her back? Has the rebellion been crushed in the north?'
'Crushed? No, it commands all. As for Sha'ik ...' Coltaine paused to adjust his crow-feather cape. 'Perhaps her visions have taken her into the future. Perhaps she knows the Whirlwind shall fail, that even now the Adjunct to the Empress assembles her legions – Unta's harbour is solid with transports. The Whirlwind's successes will prove but momentary, a first blood-rush that succeeded only because of Imperial weakness. Sha'ik knows... the dragon has been stirred awake, and moves ponderously still, yet when the full fury comes, it shall scour this land from shore to shore.'
'This other army, here in the south ... how far away?'
Coltaine straightened. 'I intend to arrive at Vathar two days before it.'
Word must have reached him that Ubaryd has fallen, along with Devral and Asmar. Vathar – the third and last river. If we make Vathar, it's a straight run south to Aren – through the most forbidding wasteland on this Hood-Cursed continent. 'Fist, the River Vathar is still months away. What of tomorrow?'
