The Hound Blind stepped away from Icarium's side, and the shock of seeing her tail dip jolted through the sapper.
Rood and Baran joined Shan, forming a nervous barrier – leaving Fiddler on the wrong side. He scrambled back, his limbs moving jerkily, as if weakened by a gallon of wine in his veins. His gaze held on Icarium, as the edge they now all tottered on finally revealed itself, promising horror.
All three Hounds flinched and jolted back a step. Fiddler spun about. The path ahead was closed into a new wall, a seething, swarming wall. Oh, my, we meet again.
The girl was no more than eleven or twelve, wearing a leather vest on which was stitched overlapping bronze scales – flattened coins, in fact – and the spear she held in her hands was heavy enough to waver as she resolutely maintained her guard stance.
Felisin glanced down at the basketful of braided flowers at the girl's bare, dusty feet. 'You've some skill with those,' she said.
The young sentry glanced again at Leoman, then the Toblakai.
'You may lower your weapon,' the desert warrior said.
The spear's trembling point dropped down to the sand.
The Toblakai's voice was hard, 'Kneel before Sha'ik Reborn!'
She was prostrate in an instant.
Felisin reached down and touched the girl's head. 'You may rise. What is your name?'
As she climbed hesitantly upright, she answered with a shake of her head.
'Likely one of the orphans,' Leoman said. 'None to speak for her in the naming rite. Thus, she has no name, yet she would give her life for you, Sha'ik Reborn.'
'If she would give her life for me, then she has earned a name. So with the other orphans.'
'As you wish – who then will speak for them?'
'I shall, Leoman.'
The edge of the oasis was marked by low, crumbling mud-brick walls and a thin scatter of palms under which sand crabs scuttled through dry fronds. A dozen white goats stood in nearby shade, light-grey eyes turned towards the newcomers.
Felisin reached down and collected one of the bracelets of braided flowers. She slipped it over her right wrist.
They continued on into the heart of the oasis. The air grew cooler; the pools of shadow they passed through were a shock after so long under unrelieved sunlight. The endless ruins revealed that a city had once stood here, a city of spacious gardens and courtyards, pools and fountains, all reduced to stumps and low ridges.
Corrals ringed the camp, the horses within them looking healthy and fit.
'How large is this oasis?' Heboric asked.
'Can you not enquire of the ghosts?' Felisin asked.
'I'd rather not. This city's destruction was anything but peaceful. Ancient invaders, crushing the last of the First Empire's island enclaves. The thin sky-blue potsherds under our feet are First Empire, the thick red ones are from the conquerors. From something delicate to something brutal, a pattern repeated through all of history. These truths weary me, down to my very soul.'
'The oasis is vast,' Leoman told the ex-priest. 'There are areas that hold true soil, and these we have planted with forage and crops. A few ancient cedar stands remain, amidst stumps that have turned to stone. There are pools and lakes, the water fresh and unending. Should we choose, we need never leave this place.'
'How many people?'
'Eleven tribes. Forty thousand of the best-trained cavalry this world has ever seen.'
Heboric grunted. 'And what can cavalry do against legions of infantry, Leoman?'
The desert warrior grinned. 'Only change the face of war, old man.'
'It's been tried before,' Heboric said. 'What has made the Malazan military so successful is its ability to adapt, to alter tactics – even on the field of battle. You think the Empire has not met horse cultures before, Leoman? Met, and subdued. A fine example would be the Wickans, or the Seti.'
'And how did the Empire succeed?'
'I am not the historian for such details – they never interested me. Had you a library with Imperial texts – works by Duiker and Tallobant – you could read for yourself. Assuming you can read Malazan, that is.'
'You define the limits of their region, the map of their seasonal rounds. You take and hold water sources, building forts and trading posts – for trade weakens your enemy's isolation, the very source of their power. And, depending on how patient you are, you either fire the grasslands and slaughter every animal on four legs, or you wait, and to every band of youths that rides into your settlements, you offer the glory of war and booty in foreign lands, with the promise to keep the group intact as a fighting unit. Such a lure plucks the flower from those tribes, until none but old men and old women mutter about the freedom that once existed,' Leoman replied.