She thought back. The sun had been spilling out along the horizon. The day was going away, and it had been a day when no one had spoken, when the Snake had been silent. She had been walking three paces behind Rutt, and Rutt walked hunched over around Held, who was huddled in his arms, and Held’s eyes were closed against the glare – but then, they were always closed, because so much in the world was too hard to look at.
This would be their last night. They knew it – the whole Snake knew
it. Badalle had said nothing to change their minds. Perhaps she too had given up – it was hard to know for certain. Defiance could hold its shape, even when it was made of nothing but cinders and ash. Anger could look hot to the touch, when in truth it was lifeless and cold. In this way, the world could deceive. It could lie, and in lying it invited delusion. It invited the idea that what it
was
was true. In this way, the world could make belief a fatal illness.
She stared down at the backs of the heavies, and remembered more.
Rutt’s steps wavered. Halted. His voice cracked as it made a wordless sound, and then it cracked a second time, and he said, ‘Badalle. The flies are walking now.’
She looked down at her legs, to see if they could take her up alongside him, and, slowly, agonizingly, they did. And far ahead, to the place where he was looking with his blinded, closed-up eyes, she saw swarming shapes, black as they came out of the sunset’s red glare. Black and seething. Flies, walking on two legs, one clump, then another and another, emerging from the blood-light.
‘The flies,’ said Rutt, ‘are walking.’
But she had sent them away. Her last command of power, the one that used her up. And now, this day, she had been blowing nothing but air from her lips.
Badalle squinted.
‘I want to be blind again, Badalle.’
She studied the puffed masses filling his sockets. ‘You still are, Rutt.’
‘Then … they are in my head. The flies …
in my head
.’
‘No. I see them too. But that seething – it is just the sun’s light behind them. Rutt, they are people.’
He almost fell then, but widened his stance and, with terrible grace, he straightened. ‘Fathers.’
‘No. Yes. No.’
‘Did we turn round, Badalle? Did we somehow turn round?’
‘No. See, the west – we have walked into the sun, every day, every dusk.’ She was silent then. The Snake was coiling up behind the two of them, its scrawny body of bones drawing together, as if that could keep it safe. The figures from the sunset were coming closer. ‘Rutt, there are … children.’
‘What is that, upon their skin – their faces?’
She saw the one father among them, his beard grey and rust, his eyes suffering the way the eyes of some fathers did – as they sent their young ones away for the last time. But the faces of the children drew her attention.
Tattoos
. ‘They have marked themselves, Rutt.’
Droplets, black tears. No, I see the truth of it now. Not tears. The tears have
dried up, and will never return. These marks, upon face and hands, arms and neck, shoulders and chest. These marks
. ‘Rutt.’
‘Badalle?’
‘They have claws.’
A ragged breath fell out from him, left him visibly trembling.
‘Try now, Rutt. Your eyes. Try to open them.’
‘I – I can’t—’
‘Try. You must.’
The father, along with his mob of clawed children, drew closer. They were wary – she could see that.
They did not expect us. They did not come looking for us. They are not here to save us
. She could see their suffering now, the thirst that gripped their faces like taloned, skeletal hands.
Claws will make you suffer
.
Yet the father, now standing before Rutt, reached down to the waterskin strapped to his sword belt. There was little water in it – that was obvious by its thinness, the ease with which he lifted it. Tugging the stopper free, he held it out to Rutt.
Who in turn thrust out Held. ‘Her first,’ he said. ‘Please, the little one first.’
The gesture was unambiguous and without hesitation the father stepped up, and as Rutt pulled the cloth from in front of Held’s small, wizened face the bearded man leaned close.
She saw him recoil, saw him look up and stare hard into Rutt’s slitted eyes.
Badalle held her breath. Waited.
Then he shifted the waterskin, dipped the mouthpiece over Held’s mouth, and the water trickled down.
She sighed. ‘This father, Rutt, is a good father.’
One of the clawed children, a year or two older than Rutt, came up then and gently took Held from Rutt’s arms – he might have resisted, but did not have the strength, and when the babe was in the cradle of the strange boy’s arms Rutt’s own arms remained crooked, as if he still held her, and Badalle saw how the tendons at his elbows had shrunk, drawn tight. And she thought back, trying to recall when she had last seen Rutt not holding Held, and she couldn’t.
The baby was a ghost in his arms now.
The father was weeping – she could see the tracks down his darkened, pitted cheeks – and he guided the mouthpiece into Rutt’s mouth, forced it past the boy’s lips. A few drops, and then out again.
Rutt swallowed.
The other children with claws slipped past them, into the coiled Snake, each pulling out their own waterskins. But there were not enough of them. Still they went.
And now Badalle saw a new Snake, coming out of the sunset, and this
one was of iron and chains, and she knew that she had seen it before, in her dreams. She had looked down upon this glittering serpent.
Fathers and mothers, but children all. And there – I see her – that is their one mother – I see her. She comes
.
People spilled out around the woman, with more waterskins.
She halted close to the bearded father, her eyes on Badalle, and when she spoke it was in the language of Badalle’s dreams. ‘Fiddler, they are walking the wrong way.’
‘Aye, Adjunct.’
‘I see only children.’
‘Aye.’
Standing behind this woman was another soldier. ‘But … Adjunct, who do they belong to?’
She turned. ‘It doesn’t matter, Fist, because they now belong to us.’
Rutt turned to Badalle. ‘What are they saying?’
‘They’re saying we have to go back.’
The boy mouthed the last word.
Back?
Badalle said, ‘Rutt, you did not fail. You guided the Snake, and your blind tongue flicked out and found these strangers who are strangers no longer. Rutt, you led us from death and into life. Rutt,’ she stepped close, ‘you can rest now.’
The bearded man – whose name was Fiddler – managed to break Rutt’s fall, but both went down to their knees.
The Adjunct took a half-step. ‘Captain? Does he live?’
He looked up after a moment. ‘If his heart still beats, Adjunct, I can neither feel nor hear it.’
Badalle spoke in their language. ‘He lives, Father. He has just gone away. For a time.’
The man Mother had called Fist, who had been standing back, now edged forward and said, ‘Child, how is it you speak Malazan? Who are you?’
Who am I? I don’t know. I’ve never known
. She met Mother’s eyes. ‘Rutt led us to you. Because you are the only ones left.’
‘Only ones?’
‘The only ones who will not turn away from us. You are our mother.’
At that the Adjunct seemed to step back, her eyes flaring as if struck to pain. And then she looked away from Badalle, who then pointed at Fiddler. ‘And he is our father, and soon he will go away and we will never see him again. It is the way of fathers.’ That thought made her sad, but she shook her head against the feeling. ‘It is just the way.’
The Adjunct seemed to be trembling and unable to look upon Badalle. Instead, she turned to the man beside her. ‘Fist, broach the reserve casks.’
‘Adjunct! Look at them! Half will die before dawn!’
‘Fist Blistig, I have given you an order.’
‘We cannot spare any water! Not for these – these …’
‘Obey my command,’ said the Adjunct in a weary tone, ‘or I will have you executed. Here. Immediately.’
‘And face open rebellion! I swear it—’
Fiddler had straightened and now he walked to stand in front of Fist Blistig, so close that the Fist took a step back. He said nothing, only smiled, his teeth white amidst that tangle of rusty beard.
Snarling an oath, Blistig swung round. ‘On your heads, then.’
The Adjunct spoke. ‘Captains Yil and Gudd, accompany Fist Blistig.’
A man and a woman who had been hanging back swung round to flank Blistig as he marched back into the column.
Fiddler returned to where Rutt was lying. He knelt beside the boy, settled one hand to one side of the thin face. Then he looked up at Badalle. ‘He led you?’
She nodded.
‘How far? How long?’
She shrugged. ‘Kolanse.’
The man blinked, looked over at the Adjunct for an instant, and then back to Badalle. ‘How many days, then, to water?’
She shook her head. ‘To Icarias, where there are wells … I – I can’t remember. Seven days? Ten?’
‘Impossible,’ said someone from the crowd gathered behind the Adjunct. ‘We have a day’s supply left. Without water, three days at the most – Adjunct, we cannot make it.’
Badalle cocked her head. ‘Where there is no water, there is blood. Flies. Shards. Where there is no food, there are children who have died.’
Someone said, ‘Fist Blistig is right this time, Adjunct. We can’t do this.’
‘Captain Fiddler.’
‘Aye?’
‘Have your scouts guide the ones who can walk back to the food wagons. Ask the Khundryl to attend to those who cannot. See to it that everyone gets water, and food if they can manage any.’
‘Aye, Adjunct.’
Badalle watched him ease his arms under Rutt, watched him lift the boy.
Rutt is now Held. He carried Held until he could carry her no longer, and now he is carried, and this is how it goes on
.
‘Adjunct,’ she said as Fiddler carried Rutt away, ‘I am named Badalle, and for you I have a poem.’
‘Child, if you stand there unattended to for much longer, you are going to die. I will hear your poem, but not now.’
Badalle smiled. ‘Yes, Mother.’
And for you I have a poem
. She stared at the straining backs, the shedding ropes, the toppled statues by the wayside. Two nights now since that meeting, since the last time Badalle had seen the Adjunct. Or the man named Fiddler. And the water was now gone, and still Rutt would not wake, and Saddic sat atop the bales putting his things in patterns only to pack them away again, until the next time.
And she listened to the arguments. She heard the fighting, saw the sudden roiling eddies where fists lashed out, soldiers grappled, knives were drawn. She watched as these men and women stumbled towards death, because Icarias was too far away. They had nothing left to drink, and now those who drank their own piss were starting to go mad, because piss was poison – but they would not bleed out the dead ones. They just left them to lie on the ground.
This night, she had counted fifty-four. The night before there had been thirty-nine, and on the day in between they’d carried seventy-two bodies from the camp, not bothering to dig a trench this time, simply leaving them lying in rows.
The children of the Snake were on the food wagons. Their walking was done, and they too were dying.
Icarias. I see your wells. They were almost dry when we left you. Something is taking the water away, even now. I don’t know why. But it doesn’t matter. We will not reach them. Is it true, then, that all mothers must fail? And all fathers must walk away never to be seen again?
Mother, for you I have a poem. Will you come to me? Will you hear my words?
The wagon rocked, the heavies strained. Soldiers died.
They were on a path now. Fiddler’s scouts had little trouble following it. Small, bleached bones, all the ones who had fallen behind the boy named Rutt, the girl named Badalle. Each modest collection he stumbled over was an accusation, a mute rebuke. These children. They had done the impossible.
And now we fail them
.
He could hear the blood in his own veins, frantic, rushing through hollow places, and the sound it made was an incessant howl. Did the Adjunct still believe? Now that they were dying by the score, did she still hold to her faith? When determination, when stubborn will, proved not enough, what then? He had no answers to such questions. If he sought her out –
no, she’s had enough of that. They’re on her constantly. Fists, captains, the cutters
. Besides, talking was torture – lips split open, the
swollen tongue struggled, the back of the throat – tight and cracked – was pained by every uttered word.
He walked with his scouts, not wanting to drop back, to see what was happening in the column. Not wanting to witness its disintegration. Were his heavies still pulling the wagons? If they were, they were fools. Were any of those starved children left? That boy, Rutt – who’d carried that thing for so long his arms looked permanently crippled – was he still in a coma, or had he slipped away, believing he’d saved them all?