'This is impossible,' Duiker said. 'If we cannot go to Ubaryd, what other city lies open to us?'
'There is but one,' Bult said. 'Aren.'
Duiker sat straight. 'Madness! Two hundred leagues!'
'And another third, to be precise,' Lull said, baring his teeth.
'Is Pormqual counterattacking? Is he marching north to meet us halfway? Is he even aware that we exist?'
Bult's gaze held steady on the historian. 'Aware? I would think so, Historian. Will he march out from Aren? Counterattack?' The veteran shrugged.
'I saw a company of Engineers on my way here,' Lull said. 'They were weeping, one and all.'
Chenned asked, 'Why? Is their invisible commander lying on the bottom of the Sekala with a mouthful of mud?'
Lull shook his head. 'They're out of cussers now. Just a crate or two of sharpers and burners. You'd think every one of their mothers had just croaked.'
Coltaine finally spoke. 'They did well.'
Bult nodded. 'Aye. Wish I'd been there to see the road go up.'
'We were,' Duiker said. 'Victory tastes sweetest in the absence of haunting memories, Bult. Savour it.'
In his tent, Duiker awoke to a soft, small hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to darkness.
'Historian,' a voice said.
'Nether? What hour is this? How long have I slept?'
'Perhaps two,' she answered. 'Coltaine commands you to come with me. Now.'
Duiker sat up. He'd been too tired to do more than simply lay his bedroll down on the floor. The blankets were sodden with sweat and condensation. He shivered with chill. 'What has happened?' he asked.
'Nothing, yet. You are to witness. Quickly now, Historian. We have little time.'
He stepped outside to a camp quietly moaning in the deepest hour of darkness before the arrival of false dawn. Thousands of voices made the dreadful, gelid sound. Wounds troubling exhausted sleep, the soft cries of soldiers beyond the arts of the healers and cutters, the lowing of livestock, shifting hooves underscoring the chorus in a restless, rumbling beat. Somewhere out on the plain north of them rose faint wailing, wives and mothers grieving the dead.
As he followed Nether's spry, wool-cloaked form down the twisting lanes of the Wickan encampment, the historian was drawn into sorrow-laden thoughts. The dead were gone through Hood's Gate. The living were left with the pain of their passage. Duiker had seen many peoples as Imperial Historian, yet among them not one in his recollection did not possess a ritual of grief. For all our personal gods, Hood alone embraces us all, in a thousand guises. When the breath from his gates brushes close, we ever give voice to drive back that eternal silence. Tonight, we hear the Semk. And the Tithansi. Uncluttered rituals. Who needs temples and priests to chain and guide the expression of loss and dismay – when all is sacred?
'Nether, why do the Wickans not grieve this night?'
She half turned as she continued walking. 'Coltaine forbids it.'
'Why?'
'For that answer you must ask him. We have not mourned our losses since this journey began.'
Duiker was silent for a long moment, then he said, 'And how do you and the others in the three clans feel about that, Nether?'
'Coltaine commands. We obey.'
They came to the edge of the Wickan encampment. Beyond the last tent stretched a flat killing strip, perhaps twenty paces wide, then the freshly raised wicker walls of the pickets, with their long bamboo spikes thrust through them, the points outward and at the height of a horse's chest. Mounted warriors of the Weasel Clan patrolled along them, eyes on the dark, stone-studded plain beyond.
In the killing strip stood two figures, one tall, the other short, both lean as spectres. Nether led Duiker up to them
Sormo. Nil. 'Are you,' the historian asked the tall warlock, 'all that remain? You told Coltaine you lost but two yesterday.'
Sormo E'nath nodded. 'The others rest their young flesh. A dozen horsewives tend to the mounts and a handful of healers tend to wounded soldiers. We three are the strongest, thus we are here.' The warlock stepped forward. There was a febrile air about him, and in his voice was a tone that asked for something more than the historian could give. 'Duiker, whose eyes met mine across the Whirlwind ghosts in the trader camp, listen to my words. You will hear the fear – every solemn chime. You are no stranger to that dark chorus. Know, then, that this night I had doubts.'
'Warlock,' Duiker said quietly, as Nether stepped forward to take position on Sormo's right – turning so that all three now faced the historian – 'what is happening here?'