'Well, how long do you think that will take?'
The Rhivi shrugged. 'It will be done when it is done.'
The second three hundred bhederin rumbled their way up the causeway. The herders moved to meet them.
Gruntle heard a meaty thud, then the Rhivi were all shouting, racing back. The Daru turned in time to see High Marshal Sty, the front of his long shirt pulled up around a hefty pile of dung, run full tilt past, onto the ramp, then thump down the length of the barge.
A single Rhivi herder, who had clearly been left to guard the dung, lay sprawled beside the looted heap, unconscious, the red imprint of a large, bony fist on his jaw.
Gruntle grinned over at the old herder, who was jumping about, spitting with fury.
Itkovian moved up alongside him. 'Sir, did you see that?'
'No, alas, just the tail end.'
'That punch came out of nowhere — I did not even see him step close. The poor Rhivi dropped like a sack of … of-'
'Dung?'
After a long moment — so long that Gruntle thought it would never come — Itkovian smiled.
Rain clouds had rolled in from the sea, the rain driven on fierce winds, each drop striking iron helms, shields and leather rain-cloaks with enough force to shatter into mist. The abandoned farmland on all sides vanished behind a grey wall, the trader road churned to clinging mud beneath hooves, wagon wheels and boots.
Water sluicing down through his visor — which he had lowered in an only partially successful attempt to keep the rain from his eyes — Whiskeyjack struggled to make sense of the scene. A messenger had called him back from the vanguard, shouting barely heard words concerning a broken axle, the train halted in disarray, injured animals. At the moment, all he could make out was a mass of mud-covered soldiers scrambling, slipping, knotting ropes and shouting inaudibly to each other, and at least three wagons buried to their axles on what had once been the road but had since turned into a river of mud. Oxen were being pulled clear on the far side, the beasts bellowing.
He sat on his horse, watching. There was no point in cursing the fickle vagaries of nature, nor the failure of over-burdened wagons, nor even the pace which they all laboured under. His marines were doing what needed to be done, despite the apparent chaos. The squall was likely to be shortlived, given the season, and the sun's thirst was fierce. None the less, he wondered which gods had conspired against him, for since the crossing not a single day of this frantic march had passed without incident — and not one of those incidents had yielded mercy to their desires.
It would be two more days, at the very least, before they reached Coral. Whiskeyjack had received no communication from Quick Ben since before Maurik, and the wizard, Paran and the Bridgeburners had been still half a night's travel from Coral's environs at that time. He was sure they had reached the city by now, was equally certain that Dujek and his companies were even now closing in for the rendezvous. If a battle was to come, it would be very soon.
Whiskeyjack swung his horse round, nudged the weary beast along the track's edge to return to the vanguard. Night was fast approaching, and they would have to stop, at least for a few bells. He would then have some precious time alone with Korlat — the rigours of this march had kept them apart far too often, and while he and Korlat held to the belief that her Lord, Anomander Rake, could not yet be counted out, she had assumed the role of commander among her Tiste Andii kin in all respects — cold, remote, focused exclusively on the disposition of her brothers and sisters.
They were, under her direction, exploring Kurald Galain, their Warren of Darkness, drawing upon its power in an effort to purge it of the Crippled God's infection. Whiskeyjack had seen, upon their shortlived, infrequent reappearances, the cost borne by Orfantal and the other Tiste Andii. But Korlat wanted Kurald Galain's power within reach — without fear of corruption — by the time battle was joined at Coral.
A change had come to her, he sensed. Some bleak resolve had hardened all that was within her. Perhaps it was the possible death of Anomander Rake that had forced such induration upon her spirit. Or, perhaps, it was their future paths they had so naively entwined without regard for the harsh demands of the real world. The past was ever restless, for them both.
Whiskeyjack, in his heart, was certain that Anomander Rake was not dead. Nor even lost. In the half-dozen late-night conversations he had shared with the Lord of Moon's Spawn, the Malazan had acquired a sense of the Tiste Andii: despite the alliances, including the long-term partnership with Caladan Brood, Anomander Rake was a man of solitude — an almost pathological independence. He was indifferent to the needs of others, for whatever reassurance or confirmation they might expect or demand. He said he would be there for the assault on Coral, and so he will.
