'Very good. Thank you, Hurlochel.'
The outrider rode back out of the column.
'What do you think this means, High Fist?'
Paran shrugged at the healer's question. 'I imagine we'll discover soon enough, Boil.'
'Noto Boil, sir. Please.'
'Good thing,' Paran continued, unable to help himself, 'you became a healer and not a lancer.'
'If you don't mind, sir, I think I hear someone complaining up ahead about saddle sores.' The man clucked his mount forward.
Oh my, he prefers saddle sores to my company. Well, to each his own…
'High Fist Paran,' Captain Sweetcreek muttered. 'What's he doing riding back there, and what's all that about no saluting? It's bad for discipline. I don't care what the soldiers think – I don't even care that he once commanded the Bridgeburners – after all, he took them over only to see them obliterated. It's not proper, I'm saying. None of it.'
Fist Rythe Bude glanced over at the woman. Her colour was up, the Fist observed, eyes flashing. Clearly, the captain was not prepared to forget that punch in the jaw. Mind you, I probably wouldn't forgive something like that either.
'I think the Fists need to organize a meeting-'
'Captain,' Rythe Bude warned, 'you forget yourself.'
'My apologies, sir. But, now that we're trailing some kind of army, well, I don't want to end up like the Bridgeburners. That's all.'
'Dujek Onearm's confidence in Paran, and his admiration for the man, Captain, is sufficient for me. And my fellow Fists. I strongly advise you to suppress your anger and recall your own discipline. As for the army ahead of us, even a thousand mounted warriors hardly represents a significant threat to the Host. This rebellion is over – there's noone left to rebel, after all. And little left to fight over.' She gestured forward with one gauntleted hand. 'Even these pilgrims keep falling to the wayside.'
A low mound of stones was visible to one side of the rough track – another sad victim of this pilgrimage – and from this one rose a staff bedecked in crow feathers.
'That's eerie, too,' Sweetcreek said. 'All these Coltaine worshippers…'
'This land breeds cults like maggots in a corpse, Captain.'
Sweetcreek grunted. 'A most appropriate image, Fist, in this instance.'
Rythe Bude grunted. Aye, I stumble on those every now and then.
Behind the two riders, Corporal Futhgar said, 'Sirs, what are those?'
They twisted round in their saddles, then looked to where the man was pointing. The eastern sky. Voices were rising among the soldiers now, invoked prayers, a few shouts of surprise.
A string of suns, a dozen in all, each small but bright enough to burn blinding holes in the blue sky. From two stretched tails of fiery mist. The row of suns curved like a longbow, the ends higher, and above it was the blurred, misshapen face of the moon.
'An omen of death!' someone shouted.
'Captain,' Rythe Bude snapped, 'get that fool to shut his mouth.'
'Aye, sir.'
'The sky falls,' Noto Boil said as he fell back in beside the High Fist.
Scowling, Paran continued studying the strange appearance in the eastern sky, seeking some sense of what it was they were witnessing.
Whatever it is, I don't like it.
'You doubt me?' the healer asked. 'High Fist, I have walked the lands of Korel. I have seen the craters left behind by all that descended from the sky. Have you ever perused a map of Korel? The entire northern subcontinent and its host of islands? Fling a handful of gravel into mud, then wait whilst water fills the pocks. That is Korel, sir. The people still tell tales of the countless fires that fell from the sky, in the bringing down of the Crippled God.'
'Ride to the head of the column, Noto Boil,' Paran said.
'Sir?'
'Call a halt. Right now. And get me Hurlochel and his outriders. I need a sense of the surrounding area. We may need to find cover.'
For once, the healer made no complaint.
Paran stared at the string of fires, growing like a salvo from the Abyss. Damn, where's Ormulogun? I need to find him, and he'd better have that Deck ready – or at least the cards etched out, preferably scribed and ready for the threads of paint. Gods below, he'd better have something, because I don't have time to… his thoughts trailed away.
He could feel them now, coming ever closer – he could feel their heat – was that even possible?
The damned moon – I should have paid attention. I should have quested, found out what has happened up there, to that forlorn world. And then another thought struck him, and he went cold.