‘Oh, for …’ Spindle threw down the bundle and undid it. He held out one of the chips. The little beast snapped it up and eagerly licked and bit, tasting it. It smiled, revealing needle teeth, then popped the chip in and munched happily.
Spindle and Duiker shared another amazed glance.
The fiend flinched, wincing, and hopped in circles, clawed hands clapped to its mouth. ‘Arrgh! Toof! Oh, foor toof! Foor me!’
‘Well?’ Spindle said.
It waved them forward. ‘Yef, yef. Fis way. Fome!’
As soon as the vessel bumped up against the sagging pier Aragan and Captain Dreshen led their uneasy mounts by short reins across the gangway and up the pier. They saddled the horses then set off westward for the foothills of the Moranth mountains. They rode for two days, angling south. Early on the second night Captain Dreshen woke Aragan and nodded towards a large band of riders approaching under the bright jade light of the Scimitar.
The Rhivi band encircled them, peering down expressionless from their mounts.
‘Yes?’ Aragan challenged, belting on his sword.
One dipped his spear to urge his mount a few steps closer. ‘Come with us, Malazan,’ was all he would say.
Aragan and Dreshen shared a resigned look and set to readying their mounts. Almost immediately after heading further west they encountered more Rhivi outriders. An ever enlarging band of horsemen gathered around them as the night deepened. They were guided to a fresh encampment where elders, horsewives and shouldermen tended wounded laid out in the bloodstained grass. The sight of so many slashed and crippled tore at Aragan’s heart and he had a difficult time finding his voice.
‘So, I’m too late,’ he said to a nearby old woman. ‘I’m your prisoner.’
She rose and came to him. A blood-spattered hand clutched his leg. The horror of what she had seen was still in her gaze and he had to look away. ‘No, Malazan,’ she said. ‘We hope there is still time. See to your people. Even now the Seguleh hunt them.’
‘The Seguleh! They did this?’
‘No one else is so … precise. Few are killed, most are sorely wounded. So they would burden us.’
‘I see … I am sorry.’
‘Save your pity for your own.’
‘Yes. You will ride north, then?’
The woman flinched away as if slapped. ‘No! We will answer this insult. How little they know us. We are not to be brushed aside.’
‘Yet … they are Seguleh.’
‘Irrelevant. We must be who
‘I understand. I should ride, then.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ She raised her blood-wet arms to shout: ‘All who would bring the spear to our enemies ride now! Go! Bring blood and terror! Ride them down!’
Answering ululations and shouts grew to an enraged roar that engulfed Aragan. The ambassador rose tall in his saddle, circling an arm in the air. Kicking, he reared his mount even taller and charged off, throwing dirt high behind. The Rhivi warriors all around them, men and women, old and young, ran for their mounts. He, the captain and their escort rode on, knowing that all who wished to follow would soon catch up.
‘Takin’ their own sweet time about it, ain’t they?’ Bendan complained.
Sergeant Hektar chuckled and motioned to all the soldiers surrounding them in line, some twenty soldiers deep, across the narrow valley mouth. ‘Butcher’s back with us,’ he laughed. ‘Brave as a mouse in his bolthole now, hey?’
‘What d’ya mean?’
‘I mean you was runnin’ just as fast as the rest of us last night!’ and he chortled again.
Bendan rolled his neck to crack the bones stiff from his constant watching. ‘I just mean they ain’t showin’ us the proper respect. They’re actin’ like we don’t matter.’
‘Like they can take their time,’ Corporal Little added.
‘They got that right,’ Bone muttered darkly.
Bendan laughed at the suggestion. ‘C’mon, man. There’s near ten thousand of us!’
‘And a good four hundred of them.’
‘Malazan iron will stop them,’ Hektar said loudly and shouts arose from nearby in the ranks affirming that.
‘Aye, aye, Sarge,’ Bone assented, sighing.
‘Here come our playmates now, anyway,’ Hektar said, pointing one great paw of a hand.
The lines grew quiet as the Seguleh came jogging up out of the morning mist. Ghostly silent, they spread out to right and left in a line. That line, only a single body deep, faced a fraction of the Malazan numbers. Seeing this, Bendan nudged Bone. ‘We should encircle them, hey?’
The old saboteur looked astonished. ‘Are you an idiot? We want them to run away.’
Bendan studied those slim figures. He’d thought them blowhards good at milking a reputation. Then he heard veterans tell of the Pannion campaign. Then he saw them rout the entire Rhivi army. He now had the sick feeling that he was facing the top dogs and he was the trespasser. They stood immobile; couldn’t even be seen to be drawing breath. They could have been statues but for the steaming plumes leaving their masks. None had even drawn a weapon yet.
‘Prepare arms!’ the call went up and down the ranks. The scraping of iron on leather and wood hissed preternaturally loud in the cold morning air. Shields rattled as the ranks tightened. Far down the Seguleh line Bendan spotted one whose mask appeared much plainer than the rest. He recalled the rumours that had been flying around the camp.
He noted how many of the warriors seemed to be peering far off into the distance past the Malazan shield wall. Perhaps studying the rising mountain slopes. Or perhaps the sky. What were they damned well lookin’ at? The fucking weather?
Even squat Corporal Little shifted uncomfortably, stamping her feet to warm them. ‘What’re they waiting for?’ she muttered under her breath.
The two lines faced one another, each motionless, watchful. The light brightened, burning off the mist. The sun was behind the Seguleh, more or less, but Fist K’ess had chosen high ground and so the Malazans were slightly above them.
None of this might have factored into the thoughts of the Third as he stood unmoving, masked head slightly tilted, his gaze seeming to search the western sky. Finally, as the morning warmed, he brought his hand up in a cutting motion and all four hundred suddenly charged.
Bendan was almost caught off guard. His attention had wandered to fix on the weight of the shield dragging down his arm. Damned fucking pain, it was. Whoever made these monstrosities certainly never had to hump them cross-country. Then he flinched with everyone as the Seguleh seemed to erase the distance between them in just a few quick paces. They closed utterly silent without bellow or howl. Only the whispered hiss of swords unsheathing sounded before the first slashes clashed against shields. And the screams. Immediate shrieks of wounded howling. And sergeants bellowing: ‘Close up!
Bendan shuffled over with everyone. The lines shrank towards the short front of the few Seguleh as if it were a maw sucking down all the men before it. Wounded came staggering back, slipping between shields. He glimpsed severed wrists, faces slashed to the bone, hands pressed to throats with blood pulsing between the fingers.
Still the call rose up on all sides: ‘Close up! Tighten ranks!’
Then his turn came. He hunched behind the shield, shortsword blade straight, ready to thrust. To one side
