could forget, too.'
'Oh no, no… I could hardly forget. I remember the time… yes, the time when we conquered the city of Morlock on the river Tenebris. We conquered it for the Emperor Yan. Yan, Yanyl – there were marching songs made about that, I can tell you.'
They were talking in Estral, and Blackwood had no hope of understanding the relevant pun in Rovac, equivalent to Ars – Arse. But Alish did not think of that. His eyes were unfocused; the sights he saw now lay far away in time and distance.
'The city fell to us on the same day that the spring thaw broke up the river of ice. That was a night… that was a night they talk about still. They were soft in that city… they screamed even before they were touched…'
He said no more, but he remembered. Yes. The room had been hot if you were near the blazing fire that glowed on the heaving flesh, or frigid if you were by the slit windows that looked out over the river. The ice had grated as floe clashed with floe all night in the swirling water. Toward morning one of the women had made a sound like the grating of old iron against old iron. She had made that sound deep in her throat and soon after that she had died.
And he remembered… yes, the room in the small village under the shadow of the Far Wall that stretched across the tundra… a smoky cave in the Valley of Insects… the inner sanctum of the desecrated Temple of the Thousand Snowflowers…
'Sorrow is sweet,' said Blackwood, knowing that some people can positively enjoy the sentimental satisfactions of remorse.
'Not all sorrow, woodsman. Let me tell you a tale… a true tale of the wars in the Cold West. It is the tale of… well, listen and you will hear.
T had been ten years fighting in the Cold West when there fell to my forces the task of capturing a small city state. It was by the coast. It was important to us: the only harbour for five hundred leagues that did not freeze in winter. Hot springs – a hot river in fact -emptied into the harbour and let ships use it all year round. We laid siege to the city.
'It was a bitter siege. The city was weak, but the people worshipped a god that was strong, and gave them aid. Led by a woman warrior-priest, they fought us, and their defence held, thanks to the powers of their god. The name of the city was Larbreth. Have you heard of that city? No? Well, I suppose you hear little of the Cold West here in Argan.
'One day, the people of the city made a sally against us. They shattered our ranks. I fought their leader, hand to hand, sword against sword. Well, I am not one for boasting, but I was the best man with a sword in all the armies of Rovac. She disarmed me. She took me prisoner. Ethlite was her name.
'She was two hundred years old. Her god kept her body young, but she was wise with the wisdom of generations. They did not hate us, do you know that? They knew who we were and what we were, but they did not hate us. She… she chose me. Was she in love? I think she was too wise for unthinking passion. But she chose me.
'I say they understood us, but they did not really understand. When she knew I was in love with her, she trusted me. She did not understand that the will is stronger than love. Poison was the way I chose. While her body was still warm, I opened the city gates. That was a victory to remember. Oh yes, I remember He remembered that day, and he remembered the night of that day, when the drums of Rovac had worked to a frenzy, and every man had lubricated himself with blood…
'So we had a victory. I took her sword, and named it after her. Ethlite, I called it. That was the best sword I ever held, but I never used it in the Cold West. I went back to Rovac. I wanted…'
But he could not speak of that. He could not speak of the Code of Night. That had been his choice: to renounce the mercenary campaigns which had given him fame and glory, and to dedicate himself to the tasks of righting Rovac's ancient wrongs.
'Mister,' said Blackwood. 'We have to bury our dead. Otherwise they end up living our lives for us.'
'And you're the one who was sorry for the dead Melski!'
'Mister, we mourn to free us for the future. From the sound of it, you're still trapped in the past. Is it the past, perhaps, which makes you drive so hard after wizards?'
Blackwood was only talking, in the most general terms, of the fanaticism which Alish had demonstrated in his pursuit of Heenmor, but Alish was provoked into saying: 'That's nothing to do with the past. Wizards are the final enemy. All of them!'
There. He had said it. He had touched on the hidden matters: the secrets of the Code of Night. But he needed to talk, yes, more than ever before he needed to talk.
'Wizards defeated the Swarms,' ventured Blackwood, who knew that much at least from legend.
Alish laughed.
'I've heard those stories, the same as you have,' said Alish. 'Who do you think makes them up?'
'Wizards, perhaps. They should know their own business, after all.'
'We have records on Rovac going back to the Long War – records which prove that history… history didn't quite happen the way it's told.'
'You have long memories, mister.'
'Yes,' said Alish. 'Remember Rovac has never tried to conquer, only to serve as mercenaries. That's why we've 'scaped the cycle of rise, decline and fall that empires suffer. Our archives are intact. So let me tell you a little of the history of this continent, Argan.
'There was a time when the Swarms lived much, much further south than they do now. Way back then, the people who called themselves the Dareska Amath lived in the lands bordering the Ocean of Cambria. They were warlike, always engaged in blood feuds and clan fights.
'Then the wizards, who wanted to rule the known world, decided to capture an entity known as the Skull of the Deep South. The Skull commands the Swarms. Controlling that power, the wizards could have conquered the world.
'They persuaded the Dareska Amath to help them, and the Dareska Amath agreed. Armies marched south in support of the wizards. They suffered great losses at the hands of fearful enemies, but they persevered, for there were heroes among them. In the end, though, in a crucial battle against the Swarms, the wizards broke and ran. It was an act of cowardice which led to a terrible defeat and the end of the expedition.
'Now the wizards knew the Swarms would begin to move north. They had committed a crime against humanity by stirring up the wrath of the Skull of the Deep South: so they decided to kill all witnesses. They laid waste to the lands around the Ocean of Cambria.
'That was the time of selection. Only the best fighters and seafarers survived the destruction of our homelands. Exiled from Argan, they sailed west till they came to the islands of Rovac. Our destiny is to destroy the wizards and recapture the lands around the Ocean of Cambria.'
'I have never heard that story before,' said Blackwood.
'It is not a story lightly shared,' said Alish.
'I understand,' said Blackwood.
And Alish lay back on the raft, shut his eyes, and was quiet, as if sleeping.
Another short summer night passed, uneasily, but without incident, and morning found the rafts still drifting down the river. That morning, Comedo emerged from his bottle and blinked at the river, the rafts, and, not the least of his amazements, the sunlight.
'What are we doing here?' he said.
Nobody paid him any attention. The least of those fighting men now felt himself to be a questing hero; their respect for the Favoured Blood had declined with their shared experiences of marching and battle which had occured in the absence of that Blood.
'What are we doing here?' yelled Comedo.
'Look!' cried an anonymous wit, safe in the company of his fellows, it's the rare and famous hairy woubit!'
There was a light splatter of laughter.
Comedo stalked over to Hearst, who was trailing a fishing line off the end of a raft..'Where are we? What are we doing here?'
'We're going down the Fleuve River on some Melski rafts,' said Hearst. 'Soon we'll reach Ep Pass. Then we'll head east across the Spine Mountains, making for Stronghold Handfast.'
