been established with the K’risnan in the other two armies, and all were approaching the fated battlefield, where, shadow wraiths witnessed, the Letherii forces awaited them.
Details, the trembling skein of preparation, Udinaas was indifferent to them, the whisper of order in seeming chaos. An army marched, like some headless migration, each beast bound by instinct, the imperatives of violence. Armies marched from complexity into simplicity. It was this detail that drove them onward. A field waited, on which all matters could be reduced, on which dust and screams and blood brought cold clarity. This was the secret hunger of warriors and soldiers, of governments, kings and emperors. The simple mechanics of victory and defeat, the perfect feint to draw every eye, every mind lured into the indulgent game. Focus on the scales. Count the measures and mull over balances, observe the stacked bodies like stacked coins and time is devoured, the mind exercised in the fruitless repetition of the millstone, and all the world beyond was still and blurred for the moment… so long as no-one jarred the table.
Udinaas envied the warriors and soldiers their simple lives. For them, there was no coming back from death. They spoke simply, in the language of negation. They fought for the warrior, the soldier, at their side, and even dying had purpose – which was, he now believed, the rarest gift of all.
Or so it should have been, but the slave knew it would be otherwise. Sorcery was the weapon for the battle to come. Perhaps it was, in truth, the face of future wars the world over. Senseless annihilation, the obliteration of lives in numbers beyond counting. A logical extension of governments, kings and emperors. War as a clash of wills, a contest indifferent to its cost, seeking to discover who will blink first – and not caring either way. War, no different an exercise from the coin-reaping of the Merchants’ Tolls, and thus infinitely understandable.
The Tiste Edur and their allies were arraying themselves opposite the Letherii armies, the day’s light growing duller, muted by the hovering wave of suspended dust. In places sorcery crackled, shimmered the air, tentative escapes of the power held ready by both sides. Udinaas wondered if anyone, anyone at all, would survive this day. And, among those who did, what lessons would they take from this battle?
She was standing beside him, silent and small and wrapped in a supple, undyed deerhide. She had said nothing, offered no reason for seeking him out. He did not know her mind, he could not guess her thoughts. Unknown and profoundly unknowable.
Yet now he heard her draw a shuddering breath.
Udinaas glanced over. ‘The bruises are almost gone,’ he said.
Feather Witch nodded. ‘I should thank you.’
‘No need.’
‘Good.’ She seemed to falter at her own vehemence. ‘I should not have said that. I don’t know what to think.’
‘About what?’
She shook her head. ‘About what, he asks. For Errant’s sake, Udinaas, Lether is about to fall.’
‘Probably. I have looked long and hard at the Letherii forces. I see what must be mages, standing apart here and there. But not the Ceda.’
‘He must be here. How could he not be?’
Udinaas said nothing.
‘You are no longer an Indebted.’
‘And that matters?’
‘I don’t know.’
They fell silent. Their position was on a rise to the northwest of the battlefield. They could make out the facing wall of Brans Keep itself, a squat, formidable citadel leaning up against a cliff carved sheer into a hillside. Corner towers flanked the wall, and on each stood large fixed mangonels with their waiting crews. There was also a mage present on each tower, arms raised, and it was evident that a ritual was under way binding the two on their respective perches. Probably something defensive, since the bulk of the King’s Battalion was positioned at the foot of the keep.
To the west of that battalion a ridge reached out from the hills a short distance, and on its other side were positioned elements of the king’s heavy infantry, along with the Riven Brigade. West of that waited companies of the Snakebelt Battalion with the far flanking side protected by the Crimson Rampant Brigade, who were backed to the westernmost edge of the Brans Hills and to the course of the Dissent River to the south.
It was more difficult to make out the array of Letherii forces east of the King’s Battalion. There was an artificial lake on the east side of the keep, and north of it, alongside the battalion, was the Merchants’ Battalion. Another seasonal river or drainage channel wound northeast on their right flank, and it seemed the Letherii forces on the other side of that intended to use the dry ditch as a line of defence.
In any case, Rhulad’s own army would present the western body of the Edur advance. Central was Fear’s army, and further to the east, beyond an arm of lesser hills and old lake beds, approached the army of Tomad and Binadas Sengar, on their way down from the town of Five Points.
The rise Udinaas and Feather Witch stood on was ringed in shadow wraiths, and it was clear to Udinaas that protective sorcery surrounded them. Beyond the rise, out of sight of the facing armies, waited the Edur women, elders and children. Mayen was somewhere among them, still cloistered, still under Uruth Sengar’s direct care.
He looked once more at Feather Witch. ‘Have you seen Mayen?’ he asked.
‘No. But I have heard things…’
‘Such as?’
‘She is not doing well, Udinaas. She hungers. A slave was caught bringing her white nectar. The slave was executed.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Bethra.’
Udinaas recalled her, an old woman who’d lived her entire life in the household of Mayen’s parents.
‘She thought she was being kind,’ Feather Witch continued. Then shrugged. ‘There was no discussion.’
‘I imagine not.’
‘One cannot be denied all white nectar,’ she said. ‘One must be weaned. A gradual diminishment.’
‘I know.’
‘But they are concerned for the child she carries.’
‘Who must be suffering in like manner.’
Feather Witch nodded. ‘Uruth does not heed the advice of the slaves.’ She met his eyes. ‘They have all changed, Udinaas. They are as if… fevered.’
‘A fire behind their eyes, yes.’
‘They seem unaware of it.’
‘Not all of them, Feather Witch.’
‘Who?’
He hesitated, then said, ‘Trull Sengar.’
‘Do not be deceived,’ she said. ‘They are poisoned one and all. The empire to come shall be dark. I have had visions… I see what awaits us, Udinaas.’
‘One doesn’t need visions to know what awaits us.’
She scowled, crossed her arms. Then glared skyward. ‘What sorcery is this?’
‘I don’t know,’ Udinaas replied. ‘New.’
‘Or… old.’
‘What do you sense from it, Feather Witch?’
She shook her head.
‘It belongs to Hannan Mosag,’ Udinaas said after a moment. ‘Have you seen the K’risnan? Those from Fear Sengar’s army are… malformed. Twisted by the magic they now use.’
‘Uruth and the other women cling to the power of Kurald Emurlahn,’ Feather Witch said. ‘They behave as if they are in a war of wills. I don’t think-’
‘Wait,’ Udinaas said, eyes narrowing. ‘It’s beginning.’
Beside him, Ahlrada Ahn bared his teeth. ‘Now, Trull Sengar, we stand in witness. And this is what it means to be an Edur warrior today.’
‘We may do more than wait,’ Trull said. We
