Deadhouse Gates

pestilence, pox their illegitimate brood with her pus-soaked kiss! Togg trample that captain's ba-'

Chenned was laughing in disbelief. 'Captain Sulmar! What would your friends in the Council say to such foul- mouthed cursing?'

'Burn take you, too, Chenned! I'm a soldier first, damn you. A trickle to a flood, that's what we're facing-'

'There won't be any desertions,' Lull said, his battered fingers slowly raking through his beard. 'The sappers ain't run away. They're up to something, I'd hazard. It's not easy reining in that unwashed, motley company when you can't even track down its captain — but I don't imagine Coltaine will make the same mistake again.'

'He'll not have the chance,' Sulmar muttered. 'The first worms will crawl into our ears before the day's done. It's the oblivious feast for us all, mark my words.'

Lull raised his brows. 'If that's as encouraging as you can manage, Sulmar, I pity your soldiers.'

'Pity's for the victors, Lull.'

A lone horn wailed its mournful note.

'Waiting's over,' Chenned said with obvious relief. 'Save me a patch of grass when you go down, gentlemen.'

Duiker watched the two Seventh captains depart. He'd not heard that particular send-off in a long time.

'Chenned's father was in Dassem's First Sword,' Lull said.

'Or so goes the rumour — even when names are swept from official histories, the past shows its face, eh, old man?'

Duiker was in no mood to rise to either jibe. 'Think I'll check my gear,' he said, turning away.

It was noon before the final positioning was completed. There had been a near riot when the refugees finally understood that the main army was to make the crossing without them. Coltaine's selection of the Weasel Clan as their escort — the horsewarriors presented a truly terrifying visage with their threaded skin, black tattooing and filed teeth — proved his cunning yet again, although the Weasel riders almost took it too far with their bloodthirsty taunts flung at the very people they were sworn to protect. Desultory calm was established, despite the frenzied, fear-stricken efforts of the noble-born's Council and their seemingly inexhaustible capacity to deliver protests and writs.

With the main force finally assembled, Coltaine issued the command to move forward.

The day was blisteringly hot, the parched ground rising in clouds of dust as soon as the brittle grass was worn away by hooves and tramping boots. Lull's prediction of eating dust proved depressingly accurate, as Duiker once more raised his tin belt-flask to his lips, letting water seep into his mouth and down the dry gully of his throat.

Marching on his left was Corporal List, his face caked white, helmet sliding down over his sweat-sheened forehead. On the historian's right strode the veteran marine — he did not know her name, nor would he ask. Duiker's fear of what was to come had spread through him like an infection. His thoughts felt fevered, spinning around an irrational terror of … of knowledge. Of the details that remind one of humanity. Names to faces are like twinned serpents threatening the most painful bite of all. I'll never return to the List of the Fallen, because I see now that the unnamed soldier is a gift. The named soldier — dead, melted wax — demands a response among the living … a response no-one can make. Names are no comfort, they're a call to answer the unanswerable. Why did she die, not him? Why do the survivors remain anonymous — as if cursed — while the dead are revered? Why do we cling to what we lose while we ignore what we still hold?

Name none of the fallen, for they stood in our place, and stand there still in each moment of our lives. Let my death hold no glory, and let me die forgotten and unknown. Let it not be said that I was one among the dead to accuse the living.

The River P'atha bisected a dry lake bed two thousand paces east to west and over four thousand north to south. As the vanguard reached the eastern ridge and proceeded down into the basin, Duiker was presented with a panoramic view of what would become the field of battle.

Kamist Reloe and his army awaited them, the glitter of iron vast and bright in the morning glare, city standards and tribal pennons hanging dull and listless above the sea of peaked helms. The arrayed soldiers rustled and rippled as if tugged by unseen currents. Their numbers were staggering.

The river was a thin, narrow strip six hundred paces ahead, studded with boulders and lined in thorny brush on both sides. A trader track marked the traditional place of crossing, then wound westward to what had once been a gentle slope to the opposite ridge — but Reloe's sappers had been busy: a ramp of sandy earth had been constructed, the natural slope to either side carved away to create a steep, high cliff. To the south of the lake bed was a knotted jumble of arroyos, basoliths, screes and jagged outcroppings; to the north rose a serrated ridge of hills bone white under the sun. Kamist Reloe had made sure there was only one point of exit westward, and at the summit waited his elite forces.

'Hood's breath!' muttered Corporal List. 'The bastard's rebuilt Gelor Ridge, and look to the south, sir, that column of smoke — that was the garrison at Melm.'

Squinting that way, Duiker saw another feature closer at hand. Set atop a pinnacle looming over the southeast end of the lake bed was a fortress. 'Who did that belong to?' he wondered aloud.

'A monastery,' List said. 'According to the only map that showed it.'

'Which Ascendant?'

List shrugged. 'Probably one of the Seven Holies.'

'If there's anyone still in there, they'll get quite a view of what's to come.'

Kamist Reloe had positioned forces down and to either side of his elite companies, blocking the north and south ends of the basin. Standards of the Sialk, Halafan, Debrahl and Tithansi contingents rose from the southern element; Ubari the northern. Each of the three forces outnumbered Coltaine's by a large margin. A roar began building from the army of the Apocalypse, along with a rhythmic clash of weapons on shields.

The marines marched towards the crossing in silence. Voices and clangour rolled over them like a wave. The Seventh did not falter.

Gods below, what will come of this?

The River P'atha was an ankle-deep trickle of warm water, less than a dozen paces across. Algae covered the pebbles and stones of the bottom. The larger boulders were splashed white with guano. Insects buzzed and danced in the air. The river's cool breath vanished as soon as Duiker stepped onto the opposite bank, the basin's baked heat sweeping over him like a cloak.

Sweat soaked the quilted undergarment beneath his chain hauberk; it ran down in dirty runnels beneath gauntlets and into the historian's palms. He tightened his grip on the shield strap, his other hand resting on the pommel of his short sword. His mouth was suddenly bone dry, though he resisted the urge to drink from his flask. The air stank of the soldiers he followed, a miasma of sweat and fear. There was a sense of something else, as well, a strange melancholy that seemed to accompany the relentless forward motion of the company.

Duiker had known that sense before, decades ago. It was not defeat, nor desperation. The sadness arose from whatever lay beyond such visceral reactions, and it felt measured and all too aware.

We go to partake of death. And it is in these moments, before the blades are unsheathed, before blood wets the ground and screams fill the air, that the futility descends upon us all. Without our armour, we would all weep, I think. How else to answer the impending promise of incalculable loss?

'Our swords will be well notched this day,' List said beside him, his voice dry and breaking. 'In your experience, sir, what's worse — dust or mud?'

Duiker grunted. 'Dust chokes. Dust blinds. But mud slips the world from under your feet.' And we'll have mud soon enough, when enough blood and bile and piss have soaked the ground. An equal measure of both curses, lad. 'Your first battle, then?'

List grimaced. 'Attached to you, sir, I've not been in the thick of things yet.'

'You sound resentful.'

The corporal said nothing, but Duiker understood well enough. The soldier's companions had all gone through their first blooding, and that was a threshold both feared and anticipated. Imagination whispered untruths that only experience could shatter.

Nevertheless, the historian would have preferred a more remote vantage point. Marching with the ranks, he