Without thinking about it he automatically reached to his side for his skin of water only to find nothing there. Empty and gone these last three days now. He figured they’d be dried corpses by now if it weren’t for everyone’s licking raindrops from the leaves. Instead of the missing waterskin, he searched for and found the leather pouch containing the last of his dried rations. Reaching inside, his fingers found not hard strips but a soft yielding mush. He snatched out his hand to find a smear of rotting meat dotted by writhing maggots. His shoulders slumped even further and he gritted his teeth against his revulsion. He tossed aside the pouch then wiped his hand on the rough surface of the root.
Blinking heavily he peered around at the rest of the troop. Men and women sat slumped at the bases of trees, hoarding their energy, motionless but for batting at the dancing insects. Everyone seemed to feel the drain of the heat. Everyone, that was, except …
Sour thumped down next to him on the root. ‘What’cha doing, pard?’
‘Melting.’
‘Ha!’ Leaning aside, Sour blocked one nostril and blew a great stream of mucus on to the dead leaves. ‘ ’T’aint that bad.’
‘Not that bad? Where were you born? The fiery floor of that after-world some Seven Cities cults go on about?’
‘Naw.’ He squinted about with his mismatched goggling eyes, then admitted, his voice low, ‘The Horn. I grew up on the Horn.’
‘The desert horn? South of Dal Hon?’
Sour waved his hands, his rotted leather gauntlets flapping. ‘Keep it quiet! Not something to brag about.’
Murk was intrigued. His partner had never hinted at such. In fact,
he’d
always gone to great pains to emphasize his city upbringing. ‘But there’s nothing there …’
‘Not true. Was a trading port. Ships always laid over. Came from everywhere, they did. I ain’t no hick!’
‘All right, all right. So that’s why you can take the heat …’
Looking away Sour remarked, ‘Ain’t the heat – it’s the humidity.’
Once more Murk wanted to throttle his partner. What stayed his hands was what Sour had already noted: the approach of the Seven Cities officer, Burastan, or whatever her name really was. The long-legged, broad-shouldered woman was still an easy place to rest the eyes, even amid all this stink and decay. She wore wide cotton pantaloons tucked into tall leather moccasins, well oiled. A loose white robe over a thin silk chemise and sash completed her garb. She had arranged her long black hair in coils atop her head, away from her neck.
Seven Cities
, Murk thought resentfully. No wonder she was up and about in the heat. Still, sweat glistened on her lovely upper lip even as that mouth twisted its contempt as it always did whenever she caught sight of them.
‘Cap’n wants you. Forward.’
Murk took a moment to gather his energy to rise. At his side, Sour saluted his flapping gauntlet. ‘Yes, ma’am, Banshur.’
‘That’s Burastan to you, monkeyface.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She led the way. Sour whispered aside to Murk, ‘What did she mean, monkeyface?’
Murk waved to the surrounding walls of foliage. ‘She was noting a likeness to your brothers and sisters.’
The man’s wizened whiskered face scrunched up in puzzlement. ‘Who?’
‘Never mind.’
The captain, Yusen, awaited them amid a great thicket of hanging serrated-edged fronds, each the size of a shield. With him was the wiry taciturn scout, Sweetly. A twig, as always, rode at the edge of the scout’s mouth. The twig seemed to be the man’s sole method of communication in an otherwise emotionless cipher of a face. An upward position indicated an approachable mood. During such times Murk dared venture a joke or two. A downward position indicated a nasty mood; at such times no one spoke to him. Currently the twig registered a straight outward position; neutral.
The chattering and whistling of bird calls was a deafening clamour
here
. Murk imagined a large flock must roost nearby. ‘What is it?’ he asked while Sour saluted.
The captain ignored the salute. He gestured ahead. ‘This way.’
Sweetly pushed aside the wide leaves, causing a torrent of droplets to fall from their frills of dagger-like edges. Sour cursed the man and lunged to cup his hands beneath the drops. Rather than responding to Sour the scout shifted his blank gaze to Yusen.
‘Water’s not our worry now,’ the captain said, and he gestured Sweetly onward. The scout advanced very carefully. He edged aside another handful of the thick underbrush and as he did so a great blast of noise erupted from all around of countless birds launching from the canopy. Bright glaring sunlight struck Murk who winced and turned aside, shading his gaze. Sour cursed the scout again.
Blinking, Murk saw that they stood at the crowded edge of a river. A near impenetrable wall of bright green verdancy lined both shores. The water was a slow-moving rust-red course that carried clumps of fallen branches and leaves along with it. Above, the sky was a clear bright blue except where a wall of dark clouds lurked in the east – the night’s rain. The wave of disturbed birdlife washed onward along the shore, brilliant shapes darting and swooping in gleaming emerald and sapphire. Like an explosion in a jewellery bourse, it seemed to Murk.
Yusen crouched at the descent to the muddy edge. ‘Should we swim it?’ he asked Murk.
Murk turned to Sour. ‘Want to take a peek?’
‘She won’t like it,’ he warned while adjusting his mouldering cap.
‘Who won’t?’ Yusen asked sharply.
‘Ardata,’ Murk half-mouthed.
‘Ah. I thought perhaps he meant …’
Murk shook his head. ‘No, not
her
. I don’t think she cares what we do.’
The captain’s thoughtful expression said that he didn’t know whether to be reassured by that. Murk nodded the go-ahead to Sour, who took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘But there’s gonna be trouble …’ He edged down the slope.
Murk, the captain and Sweetly watched while the crab-legged mage sniffed about the shore. He poked at the mud and picked up bits and pieces of flotsam that he examined so close to his goggle eyes that Murk could see them cross. Satisfied at last, he sat with his back to them and tossed the collected litter on to a piece of leather spread on the mud. He peered down at the mess for some time.
The blanket of heat and humidity caused Murk’s eyelids to droop
and
his shoulders to sag. His attention wandered to find Sweetly staring off upriver. The scout’s fixed interest stirred his unease. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.
The scout’s flat gaze flicked to him and the twig clamped tightly between his slit lips fell almost straight down.
Shit
. He nodded, then shut his eyes against the painful, unfamiliar glare of open sky. Raising his Warren was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was his responsibility. If he and Sour expected the troops to fight in their defence then they, in turn, were expected to utilize their talents to defend the column. That was the Malazan way: always an even exchange. And frankly, he wouldn’t be able to face them if they saw he was coasting on their backs. He didn’t know if Sour felt the same way about it all. He suspected not; the man was a far worse match to the rules and strictures of military life. And anyway, the troopers treated him more like a stray dog – one that had been kicked in the head once too often.
When he opened his eyes once more he found that he was still within the murky tangle of the Shadow woods. What that demon had named the forest of the Azathanai. How absurd it was that the one feature of all Shadow he dared not enter should be the place jammed right over where he was stuck. He decided to minimize his exposure by using the Warren merely to shift from place to place.
He caught Yusen’s attention, murmured, ‘Be right back,’ and stepped into the nearest shadow. From here he shifted to another, then another, and in this manner he moved southward. He scanned the jungle from the cover of a number of different shadows and once he was reasonably sure no one was about, he stepped out. He saw no sign of what might’ve interested the scout. It may just have been the nervous birds.
One more trick
. He felt through the shadow-stuff, the ephemeral Emurlahn ether, the shades of Rashan. He was searching for something specific among the flickering shapes and eventually he found it cast against the broad trunk of a tree: the silhouette of a nearly naked man, crouched, armed with spear and bow.
He returned to Yusen.
Down on the shore, Sour slipped and slid through the sticky mud flats. He poked at the clutter that accumulated along any river edge, the silvery tree branches, the layers of rotting leaves, and the thick cake-like pats of clay. Satisfied at last, he flicked his hands to clean them of the clinging mud, his gauntlet tatters flapping madly, then struggled up the naked dirt slope.
Reaching the top, he took a moment to catch his breath. Everyone waited silently for his judgement. He wiped a hand across his brow
to
brush away the beaded sweat but only succeeded in smearing a thick swipe of ochre-hued mud across his face.
Murk hissed out an impatient breath. ‘So? Should we cross?’
‘What’s that? Cross? No. Not a good idea.’
‘So we don’t cross.’
‘No. I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, you did – just now.’
‘No. That’s not what I said.’
Murk took a quick breath to yell his frustration but Yusen raised a hand for silence. Murk clenched his teeth until they hurt. ‘So …’ the captain said to Sour, slowly, as if speaking to a child, ‘what should we do?’
‘We shouldn’t cross …’ A pained grunt of suppressed wrath escaped Murk ‘… least not right now.’
Yusen’s brows rose. ‘I see. Or I believe I do. Very good.’ He lifted his attention to Sweetly. ‘South – for now.’
The lanky scout’s jaws bunched and he turned away. The twig was held so straight down in his mouth it was pressing against his chin.
When the captain turned his back, Murk threw a cuff at Sour who ducked away, mouthing, ‘What?’
South. Wonderful. Towards our watching friends
.
As they returned to the column, Murk asked, ‘So … what’s the problem? Why can’t we cross? What does Miss Nibs say?’
Sour was brushing the drying mud and clay from himself. ‘I don’t ask
her
. Don’t you know nothing? Does crazy Ammanas answer your every question?’ He raised his voice mockingly. ‘Dear Murk – you lent your knife to Lengen. That’s why you can’t find it.’
Murk did cuff him this time. ‘
Quiet
.’
‘Why?’
Murk tilted his head to the south and answered low. ‘ ’Cause we’re not alone.’
‘Who? Them?’ He flapped a tattered leather gauntlet. ‘Bah! They been watchin’ us for some time now.’
Murk gaped at his partner. ‘Then why didn’t you …’ Almost beyond words, he managed, resentfully, ‘And how would you know?’
Sour jerked a thumb to his chest. ‘Hey, I follow the Enchantress. Believe me – I know when I’m bein’ watched.’
Murk jumped on that. ‘There! You see! That’s exactly what I was getting at. She come and whisper in your ear?’
‘No, no. I keep tellin’ ya. Nothing like that.’ The squat fellow dug at one ear, smearing it in clay, while he tried to find the right words. ‘It’s more like a school of thought. Or a set a disciplines. Her way
allows
a deep access that kinda borders on Mockra, y’know? It’s a path she’s shaped that we follow. Get it?’ He peered up expectantly, brows raised.
Murk shook his head. ‘No. I don’t get it. That’s just a bunch of twaddle. Look, either she’s mistress of the Warren, or she’s a nobody.’
‘No! This ain’t Shadow. It ain’t a Realm – or a shadow of a real one.’ Murk flicked a gauntlet. ‘Houses, Holds, Realms. All that hoary old stuff. That’s the past. It’s all about paths now. No pledges or pacts or none o’ that stuff. It’s a new world, my friend.’
Murk was still shaking his head. ‘Can’t be that easy. Has to be a price …’
Sour just shrugged his humped shoulders.
‘Well – why didn’t we cross, then?’
‘That? Oh … I didn’t like the water. Gave me a bad feeling.’
Back at the column Burastan was waiting for them. She saluted Yusen then crooked a finger to call over Murk and Sour.
‘You two … maybe you could keep it down. I can’t hear the volcanoes or the stampeding elephants.’
‘Sorry, Bannister, ma’am,’ Sour mumbled.
The woman shook her head in disgust and stalked off. She threw over her shoulder: ‘And don’t wander so far from our guest.’
Sour threw up his dirty hands. ‘You called us …’ But she was gone. He turned his hurt gaze to Murk. ‘That gal. What’d we ever do to her?’
‘Don’t know. Why don’t you ask her one of these days?’
‘Yeah. Maybe.’
Murk just rubbed his gritty aching eyes.
Ye gods
…
That night was his worst yet. There was no food to be had at all. The scouts reported that something had scared off all the game. Murk sat with his arms wrapped around his knees. He sucked morosely on a knuckle of leather cut from a belt. At least when the rain started up they’d have some water to drink. Problem was all that fluid just went straight through him like a sieve. It came out looking exactly the same it did going in.