Deadhouse Gates

'All right, Corporal. Lead the way.'

They took the roped road westward towards the ford. The old channel of the oxbow was bridged by wooden slats, bolstered with new supports placed by the Seventh's sappers. This avenue was maintained to allow for the movement back and forth of mounted messengers, but, as everywhere else, chaos reigned. Duiker held close in List's wake as the corporal weaved and danced his way down to the bridge. Beyond it rose the hump of the island and thousands of cattle.

'Where did this herd come from?' the historian asked as they reached the slatted crossing.

'Purchased, for the most part,' List replied. 'Coltaine and his clans laid claim to land outside Hissar, then started buying up cattle, horses, oxen, mules, goats — just about anything on four legs.'

'When did all this happen?'

'About the same day they arrived,' the corporal said. 'When the uprising came, most of the Foolish Dog Clan was with the herds — the Tithansi tribes thought to snatch the livestock and got their noses bloodied instead.'

As they neared the trailing end of the herd the noise rose to a roar with shouting drovers, the bark of cattle- dogs — solidly muscled, half-wild beasts born and bred on the Wickan Plains — the lowing of the cattle and the ceaseless rumbling thunder of their hooves. The dust cloud engulfing the river was impenetrable.

Duiker's eyes narrowed on the seething mass ahead. 'Not sure about your idea, Corporal — these beasts look jumpy. We're likely to get crushed in seconds flat.'

A shout from behind caught their attention. A young Wickan girl was riding towards them.

'Nether,' List said.

Something in his tone pulled Duiker around. The lad was pale under his helmet.

The girl, no more than nine or ten, halted her horse before them. She was dark, her eyes like black liquid, her hair cut bristly short. The historian recalled seeing her among Sormo's charges the night before. 'You seek the wall as vantage,' she said. 'I will clear you a path.'

List nodded.

'There is aspected magic on the other side,' she said, eyes on Duiker. 'A lone god's warren, no D'ivers, no Soletaken. A tribe's god.'

'Semk,' the historian said. 'The Red Blades are carrying word.' He fell silent as he realized the import of her words, the significance of her presence at the meeting last night. One of the warlocks reborn. Sormo leads a clan of children empowered by lifetimes.

'I go to face them. The spirit of the land is older than any god.' She guided her horse around the two men, then loosed a piercing cry. A clear avenue began to take shape, animals pushing away to either side and moaning in fear.

Nether rode down that aisle. After a moment List and Duiker followed, jogging to keep up. As soon as they trod on the path they could feel the earth shivering beneath their boots — not the deep reverberations of countless hooves, but something more intense, muscular. As if we stride the spine of an enormous serpent. . the land awakened, the land eager to show its power.

Fifty paces ahead the ridge of a weathered, vine-cloaked wall appeared. Squat and thick, it was evidently the remnant of an ancient fortification, rising over a man's height and clear of the cattle. The path that Nether had created brushed one edge of it, then continued on down to the river.

The girl rode on without glancing back. Moments later List and Duiker reached the stone edifice and clambered up on its ragged but wide top.

'Look south,' List said, pointing.

Dust rose in a gold haze from the line of hills beyond the heaving mass of refugees.

'Coltaine and his Crows are in a fight,' List said.

Duiker nodded. 'There's a village on the other side of those hills, right?'

'Yes, sir. L'enbarl, it's called. The scrap looks to be on the road linking it to the ford. We haven't seen the Sialk cavalry, so it's likely Reloe sent them around to try and take our flank. Like Coltaine always says, the man's predictable.'

Duiker faced north. The other side of the island consisted of marsh grasses filling the old oxbow channel. The far side was a narrow stand of dead leadwood trees, then a broad slope leading to a steep-sided hill. The regularity of that hill suggested that it was a tel. Commanding its flat plateau was an army, weapons and armour glinting in the morning light. Heavy infantry. Dark banners rose amidst large tents behind two frontline legions of Tithansi archers. The archers had begun moving down the slope.

'That's Kamist Reloe and his hand-picked elites,' List said. 'He's yet to use them.'

To the east the feints and probes between the Weasel Clan's horsewarriors and their Tithansi and Hissari counterparts continued, while the Sialk and Hissar infantry steadily closed the distance to the Wickan defences. Behind these legions, the peasant army swirled in restless motion.

'If that horde decides to charge,' Duiker said, 'our lines won't hold.'

'They'll charge,' List affirmed grimly. 'If we're lucky, they'll wait too long and give us room to fall back.'

'That's the kind of risk Hood loves,' the historian muttered.

'The ground under them whispers fear. They won't be moving for a while.'

'Do I see control on all sides, or the illusion of control?'

List's face twisted slightly. 'Sometimes the two are one and the same. In terms of their effect, I mean. The only difference — or so Coltaine says — is that when you bloody the real thing, it absorbs the damage, while the other shatters.'

Duiker shook his head. 'Who would have imagined a Wickan warleader to think of war in such. . alchemical terms? And you, Corporal, has he made you his protege?'

The young man looked dour. 'I kept dying in the war games. Gave me lots of time to stand around and eavesdrop.'

The cattle were moving more quickly now, plunging into the stationary clouds of dust masking the ford. If anything, to Duiker's eyes the heaving flow was too quick. 'Four and a half feet deep, over four hundred paces… those animals should be crossing at a crawl. More, how to hold the herds to the shallows? Those dogs will have to swim, the drovers will get pushed off to the deeps, and with all that dust, who can see a damned thing down there?'

List said nothing.

Thunder sounded on the other side of the ford, followed by rapid percussive sounds. Columns of smoke pillared upward and the air was suddenly febrile. Sorcery. The Semk wizard' priests. A lone child to oppose them. 'This is all taking too long,' Duiker snapped. 'Why in Hood's name did it take all night just to get the wagons across? It will be dark before the refugees even move.'

'They're closing,' List said. His face was covered in dust-smeared sweat.

To the east the Sialk and Hissar infantry had made contact with the outer defences. Arrows swarmed the air. Weasel Clan horsewarriors battled on two sides — against Tithansi lancers at the front, and pike-wielding infantry on their right flank. They were struggling to withdraw. Holding the earthen defences were Captain Lull's marines, Wickan archers and a scattering of auxiliary units. They were yielding the first breastworks to the hardened infantry. The horde had begun to boil on the slopes beyond.

To the north the two legions of Tithansi archers were rushing forward for the cover of the leadwoods. From there they would start killing cattle. There was no-one to challenge them.

'And so it shatters,' Duiker said.

'You're as bad as Reloe. Sir.'

'What do you mean?'

'Too quick to count us out. This isn't our first engagement.'

Faint shrieks drifted across from the leadwoods. Duiker squinted through the dust. The Tithansi archers were screaming, thrashing about, vanishing from sight in the high marsh grasses beneath the skeletal trees. 'What in Hood's name is happening to those men?'

'An old, thirsty spirit, sir. Sormo promised it a day of warm blood. One last day. Before it dies or ceases or whatever it is spirits do when they go.'

The archers had routed, their panicked flight taking them back to the slope beneath the tel.

'There go the last of them,' List said.

For a moment Duiker thought the corporal referred to the Tithansi archers, then he realized, with a start,