‘We won’t be groaning outa envy, Hellian. More like-’
‘Silent and mysterious, damn you, Reem!’
‘I feel like talking, Balgrid, and you can’t stop me-’
‘But I can, and you won’t like it at all.’
‘Damned necromancer.’
‘Just the other side of Denul, Reem, like I keep telling you. Denul’s giving, Hood’s taking away.’
Hellian closed in on Urb, who suddenly looked terrified. ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘I ain’t gonna cut anything off. Not any-thing of yours, anyway. But if I get clobbered with terrible rejection here…’
‘Nice bed of moss over here,’ Scant said, straightening and moving away with a gesture in his wake.
Hellian reached down and tugged Urb to his feet.
Balgrid was suddenly beside him. ‘Listen, Sergeant-’
She dragged Urb past the mage.
‘No, Sergeant! Those ones tracking us-I think they’ve found us!’
All at once weapons were drawn, figures scattering to defensive positions-a rough circle facing outward with Hellian and Urb in the centre.
‘Balgrid,’ she hissed. ‘You coulda said-’
Horse hoofs, the heavy breath of an animal, then a voice called out, low, in Malazan: ‘Captain Faradan Sort and Beak. We’re coming in so put your damned sharpers away.’
‘Oh, that’s just great,’ Hellian sighed. ‘Ease down, everyone, it’s that scary captain.’
Marines all right. Beak didn’t like the look of them. Mean, hungry, scowling now that the captain had found them. And there was a dead one, too.
Faradan Sort guided her horse into their midst, then dismounted. Beak remained where he was for the moment, not far from where two soldiers stood, only now sheathing their swords. He could see the necromancer, the man’s aura white and ghostly. Death was everywhere here, the still air heavy with last breaths, and he could feelthis assault of loss like a tight fist in his chest.
It was always this way where people died. He should never have become a soldier.
‘Hellian, Urb, we need to talk. In private.’ Cool and hard, the captain’s voice. ‘Beak?’
‘Captain?’
‘Join us.’
Oh no. But he rode forward and then slipped down from the saddle. Too much attention on him all at once, and he ducked as he made his way to the captain’s side.
Faradan Sort in the lead, the group set off into the wood.
‘We ain’t done nothin’ wrong,’ Sergeant Hellian said as soon as they halted twenty or so paces from the others. She seemed to be weaving back and forth like a flat-headed snake moments from spitting venom.
‘You were supposed to pace yourselves, not get too far ahead of the other squads. At any moment now, Sergeant, we won’t be running onto patrols of twenty, but two hundred. Then two thousand.’
‘Tha’s not the probbem,’ Hellian said-an accent Beak had never heard before. ‘The probbem is, Cap’in, the Letherii are fightin’ alongside them Edur-’
‘Have you attempted to make contact with those Letherii?’
‘We have,’ Urb said. ‘It got messy.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no sign, Captain, that these people want to be liberated.’
‘Like Urb said,’ Hellian added, nodding vigorously.
The captain looked away. ‘The other squads have said much the same.’
‘Maybe we can convince them or something,’ Urb said.
Hellian leaned against a tree. ‘Seems t’me, Cap’in, we got two things we can do and ony two. We can retreat back t’the coast. Build ten thousand rafts and paddle away ‘s fast as we can. Or we go on. Fast, vicious mean. And iffin they come at us two thousand at once, then we run an’ hide like we was trained t’do. Fast and vicious mean, Cap’in, or a long paddle.’
‘There is only one thing worse than arguing with a drunk,’ Faradan Sort said, ‘and that’s arguing with a drunk who’s right.’
Hellian beamed a big smile.
She was drunk? She was drunk. A drunk sergeant, only, as the captain had just said, no fool either.
Faradan Sort continued, ‘Do you have enough horses for your squads?’,
Aye, sir,’ Urb replied. ‘More than enough.’
‘I still want you to slow down, for a few days at least. I intend to contact the other squads and get them to start doing what you’re doing, but that will take some time-’
‘Captain,’ Urb said. ‘I got a feeling they’re learning already. There’s lots more patrols now and they’re getting bigger and a lot more wary. We’ve been expecting to walk into an ambush at any time, and that’s what’s got us worried. Next time you ride to find us you might find a pile of corpses. Malazan corpses. We ain’t got the munitions to carry us all the way-no-one has-so it’s going to start getting a lot harder, sir.’