Temul spoke softly, thoughtfully. ‘To get to their horses, we would need to be quiet…’
‘Another challenge for the Seti, or so I’m sure the Adjunct would note. If children your kin must be, then take away their favoured playthings-their horses. Hard to look tall and imperious when you’re spitting dust behind a wagon. In any case, you’d best hurry, so as not to awaken the Adjunct-’
‘She may already be asleep-’
‘No, she isn’t, Temul. I am certain of it. Now, before you leave, answer me a question, please. You’ve a scroll hanging from your mare’s saddle. Why? What is written on it?’
‘The horse belonged to Duiker,’ Temul answered, turning to the animal. ‘He was a man who knew how to read and write. I rode with him, Fiddler.’ He spun back with a glare. ‘I rode with him!’
‘And the scroll?’
The young Wickan waved a hand. ‘Men such as Duiker carried such things! Indeed, I believe it once belonged to him, was once in his very hands.’
‘And the feather you wear… to honour Coltaine?’
‘To honour Coltaine, yes. But that is because I must. Coltaine did what he was expected to do. He did nothing that was beyond his abilities. I honour him, yes, but Duiker… Duiker was different.’ He scowled and shook his head. ‘He was old, older than you. Yet he fought. When fighting was not even expected of him-I know this to be true, for I knew Coltaine and Bult and I heard them speak of it, of the historian. I was there when Coltaine drew the others together, all but Duiker. Lull, Bult, Chenned, Mincer. And all spoke true and with certainty. Duiker would lead the refugees. Coltaine even gave him the stone the traders brought-’
‘The stone? What stone?’
‘To wear about his neck, a saving stone, Nil called it. A soul trapper, delivered from afar. Duiker wore it, though he liked it not, for it was meant for Coltaine, so that he would not be lost. Of course, we Wickans knew he would not be lost. We knew the crows would come for his soul. The elders who have come, who hound me so, they speak of a child born to the tribe, a child once empty, then filled, for the crows came. They came.’
‘Coltaine has been reborn?’
‘He has been reborn.’
‘And Duiker’s body disappeared,’ Strings muttered. ‘From the tree.’
‘Yes! And so I keep his horse for him, for when he returns. I rode with him, Fiddler!’
‘And he looked to you and your handful of warriors to guard the refugees. To you, Temul-not just Nil and Nether.’
Temul’s dark eyes hardened as he studied Strings, then he nodded. ‘I go now to the Adjunct.’
‘The Lady’s pull on you, Commander.’
Temul hesitated, then said, ‘This night… you saw…’
‘I saw nothing,’ Strings replied.
A sharp nod, then the lad was swinging onto the mare, the reins in one long-fingered, knife-scarred hand.
Strings watched him ride into the darkness. He sat motionless on the boulder for a time, then slowly lowered his head into his hands.
The three were seated now, in the lantern-glow of the tent’s chamber. Topper’s tale was done, and it seemed that all that remained was silence. Gamet stared down at his cup, saw that it was empty, and reached for the jug. Only to find that it too was empty.
Even as exhaustion tugged at him, Gamet knew he would not leave, not yet. Tavore had been told of, first, her brother’s heroism, then his death. Not a single Bridgeburner left alive. Tayschrenn himself saw their bodies, witnessed their interment in Moon’s Spawn. But lass, Ganoes redeemed himself-redeemed the family name. He did that much at least . But that was where the knife probably dug deepest. She had made harrowing sacrifices, after all, to resurrect the family’s honour. Yet all along, Ganoes was no renegade; nor had he been responsible for Lorn’s death. Like Dujek, like Whiskeyjack, his outlawry was nothing but a deception. There had been no dishonour. Thus, the sacrifice of young Felisin might have, in the end, proved… unnecessary .
And there was more. Jarring revelations. It had, Topper explained, been the hope of the Empress to land Onearm’s Host on the north coast, in time to deliver a double blow to the Army of the Apocalypse. Indeed, the expectation all along had been for Dujek to assume overall command. Gamet could understand Laseen’s thinking-to place the fate of the imperial presence on Seven Cities in the hands of a new, young and untested Adjunct was far too long a reach of faith.
Though Tavore had believed the Empress had done just that. Now, to find this measure of confidence so lacking… gods, this had been a Hood-damned night indeed.