Deadhouse Gates Read online

  As the historian began elaborating on what he had observed of the enemy, Coltaine cut him off with a raised hand. 'If all your narratives are as dull, it's a wonder anyone reads them," he muttered.

  Smiling, Duiker leaned back and closed his eyes. 'Ah, Fist, it's the curse of history that those who should read them, never do. Besides, I am tired.'

  'Uncle, find this old man a tent and a bedroll,' Coltaine said. 'Give him two hours. I want him up to witness as much of the crossing as possible. Let the events of the next day be written, lest history's lesson be lost to all who follow.'

  'Two hours?' Duiker mumbled. 'I can't guarantee I won't have a blurry recollection, assuming I survive to record the tale.'

  A hand shook his shoulder. The historian opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep in the chair. A blanket had been thrown across him, the Wickan wool foul-smelling and dubiously stained. A young corporal stood over him.

  'Sir? You are to rise now.'

  Every bone ached. Duiker scowled. 'What's your name, Corporal?'

  'List, sir. Fifth Company, sir.'

  Oh. Yes, the one who died and died in the mock engagements.

  Only now did the composite roar from outside reach the historian's senses. He sat up. 'Hood's breath! Is that a battle out there?'

  Corporal List shrugged. 'Not yet. Just the drovers and the livestock. They're crossing. There's been some clashes on the other side—the Guran army's arrived. But we're holding.'

  Duiker flung the blanket aside and stood up. List handed him a battered tin cup.

  'Careful, sir, it's hot.'

  The historian stared down at the dark-brown liquid. 'What is it?'

  'Don't know, sir. Something Wickan.'

  He took a sip, wincing at the scalding, bitter taste. 'Where is Coltaine? Something I forgot to tell him last night.'

  'He rides with his Crow Clan.'

  'What time is it?'

  'Almost dawn.'

  Almostdawn, and the cattle are only starting to cross? He felt himself becoming alert, glanced down again at the drink and took another sip. 'This one of Sormo's brews? It's got my nerves jumping.'

  'Some old woman handed it to me, sir. Are you ready?'

  'You've been assigned to me, List?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Your first task then, Corporal, is to direct me to the latrine.'

  They stepped outside to mayhem. Cattle covered the oxbow island, a mass of humped backs slowly edging forward to the shouts of drovers. The other side of the Sekala was obscured in clouds of dust that had begun drifting over the river.

  'This way, sir.' List gestured towards a trench behind the farmhouse.

  'Dispense with the "sirs",' Duiker said as they headed towards the latrine. 'And find me a rider. Those soldiers on the other side have some serious trouble heading their way.'

  'Sir?'

  Duiker stood at the edge of the trench. He hitched back his telaba, then paused. 'There's blood in this trench.'

  'Yes, sir. What was that about the other side of the river, sir?'

  'Heard from some Tithansi outriders,' the historian said as he relieved his bladder. 'The Semk have come south. They'll be on the Guran side, I'd guess. That tribe has sorcerers, and their warriors put the fear in the Tithansi, so you can expect they're a nasty bunch. I'd planned on mentioning it last night but forgot.'

  A troop of horsewarriors was passing in front of the house at that moment. Corporal List raced back to intercept them.

  Duiker finished and rejoined his aide. He slowed. The troop's standard was instantly recognizable. List was breathlessly conveying the message to the commander. The historian shook off his hesitation and approached. 'Baria Setral.'

  The Red Blade commander's eyes flicked to Duiker, went cold. Beside him his brother Mesker growled wordlessly. 'Seems your luck's held,' the historian said. 'And yours,' Baria rumbled. 'But not that white-haired mage. Too bad. I was looking forward to hanging his hide from our banner. This word of the Semk—from you?'

  'From the Tithansi.'

  Mesker barked a laugh and grinned. 'Shared their tents on the way, did you?' He faced his brother. 'It's a lie.'

  Duiker sighed. 'What would be the point of that?'

  'We ride to support the Seventh's advance picket,' Baria said. 'We shall pass on your warning.'

  'It's a trap—

  'Shut up, brother,' Baria said, his eyes still on Duiker. 'A warning is just that. Not a lie, not a trap. If Semk show, we will be ready. If not, then the tale was false. Nothing surrendered.'

  'Thank you, Commander,' Duiker said. 'We're on the same side, after all.'

  'Better late than never,' Baria growled. A hint of a smile showed in his oiled beard. 'Historian.' He raised a gauntleted fist, opened it. At the gesture the troop of Red Blades resumed their canter to the ford, Mesker alone flinging a dark glare Duiker's way as he rode past.

  The pale light of dawn edged its way into the valley. Above the Sekala an impenetrable cloud of dust eased crossways to the faint breeze, descending on the ford itself, then staying there. The entire crossing was obscured. Duiker grunted. 'Nice touch, that.'

  'Sormo,' Corporal List said. 'It's said he's awakened the spirits of the land and the air. From a sleep of centuries, for even the tribes have left those ways behind. Sometimes you can… smell them.'

  The historian glanced at the young man. 'Smell?'

  'Like when you flip a big rock over. The scent that comes up. Cool, musty.' He shrugged. 'Like that.'

  An image of List as a boy—only a few years younger than he was now—flashed into Duiker's mind. Flipping rocks. A world to explore, the cocoon of peace. He smiled. 'I know that smell, List. Tell me, these spirits—how strong are they?'

  'Sormo says they're pleased. Eager to play.'

  'A spirit's game is a man's nightmare. Well, let's hope they take their play seriously.'

  The mass of refugees—Duiker saw as he resumed his study of the situation—had been pushed off the oxbow island, across the ford road, to the south slope and swampy bed of the old oxbow channel. There were too many for the space provided, and he saw the far edge of the crowd creeping onto the hills beyond. A few had taken to the river, south of the ford, and were moving slowly out into the current.

  'Who is in charge of the refugees?'

  'Elements of the Crow Clan. Coltaine has his Wickans oversee them—the refugees are as scared of them as they are of the Apocalypse.'

  And theWickans won't be bought, either.

  There, sir!' List pointed to the east.

  The enemy positions that Duiker had ridden between the night before had begun moving. The Sialk and Hissar infantry were on the right, Hissari lancers on the left and Tithansi horsewarriors down the centre. The two mounted forces surged forward towards the Weasel Clan's defences. Mounted Wickan bowmen accompanied by lancers rode out to meet them. But the thrust was a feint, the Hissari and Tithansi wheeling west before locking antlers. Their commanders had called it too fine, however, as the Wickan bowmen had edged into range. Arrows flew. Riders and horses fell.

  Then it was the turn of the Wickan lancers to bolt forward in a sudden charge and their enemy quickly withdrew back to their original positions. Duiker watched in surprise as the lancers pulled up, a number of them dismounting as their bowmen kin covered them. Wounded enemy were summarily despatched, scalps and equipment taken. Ropes appeared. Minutes later the Wickans rode back to their defences, dragging the horse carcasses with them, along with a handful of wounded mounts they had managed to round up.

  'The Wickans feed themselves,' List said. 'They'll use the hides, too. And the bones, and the tails and mane, and the teeth, and the—'

  'Got it,' Duiker cut in.

  The enemy infantry continued their slow march. The Hissari and Tithansi horsewarriors had recovered and now made a slower, more cautious approach.

  'There's an old wall on the island,' List said. 'We could climb it and get a better view of all sides. If you don't mind walking on the backs o
f cattle to get there, that is. It's not as hard as it sounds—you just have to keep moving.'

  Duiker raised an eyebrow.

  'Honest, sir.'

  'All right, Corporal. Lead the way.'

  They took the roped road westward towards the ford. The old channel of the oxbow was bridged by wooden slats, bolstered with new supports placed by the Seventh's sappers. This avenue was maintained to allow for the movement back and forth of mounted messengers, but, as everywhere else, chaos reigned. Duiker held close in List's wake as the corporal weaved and danced his way down to the bridge. Beyond it rose the hump of the island and thousands of cattle.

  'Where did this herd come from?' the historian asked as they reached the slatted crossing.

  'Purchased, for the most part,' List replied. 'Coltaine and his clans laid claim to land outside Hissar, then started buying up cattle, horses, oxen, mules, goats—just about anything on four legs.'

  'When did all this happen?'

  'About the same day they arrived,' the corporal said. 'When the uprising came, most of the Foolish Dog Clan was with the herds—the Tithansi tribes thought to snatch the livestock and got their noses bloodied instead.'

  As they neared the trailing end of the herd the noise rose to a roar with shouting drovers, the bark of cattle-dogs—solidly muscled, half-wild beasts born and bred on the Wickan Plains—the lowing of the cattle and the ceaseless rumbling thunder of their hooves. The dust cloud engulfing the river was impenetrable.

  Duiker's eyes narrowed on the seething mass ahead. 'Not sure about your idea, Corporal—these beasts look jumpy. We're likely to get crushed in seconds flat.'

  A shout from behind caught their attention. A young Wickan girl was riding towards them.

  'Nether,' List said.

  Something in his tone pulled Duiker around. The lad was pale under his helmet.

  The girl, no more than nine or ten, halted her horse before them. She was dark, her eyes like black liquid, her hair cut bristly short. The historian recalled seeing her among Sormo's charges the night before. 'You seek the wall as vantage,' she said. 'I will clear you a path.'

  List nodded.

  'There is aspected magic on the other side,' she said, eyes on Duiker. 'A lone god's warren, no D'ivers, no Soletaken. A tribe's god.'

  'Semk,' the historian said. 'The Red Blades are carrying word.' He fell silent as he realized the import of her words, the significance of her presence at the meeting last night. One of the warlocks reborn. Sormo leads a clan of children empowered by lifetimes.

  'I go to face them. The spirit of the land is older than any god.' She guided her horse around the two men, then loosed a piercing cry. A clear avenue began to take shape, animals pushing away to either side and moaning in fear.

  Nether rode down that aisle. After a moment List and Duiker followed, jogging to keep up. As soon as they trod on the path they could feel the earth shivering beneath their boots—not the deep reverberations of countless hooves, but something more intense, muscular. As if we stride the spine of an enormous serpent… the land awakened, the land eager to show its power.

  Fifty paces ahead the ridge of a weathered, vine-cloaked wall appeared. Squat and thick, it was evidently the remnant of an ancient fortification, rising over a man's height and clear of the cattle. The path that Nether had created brushed one edge of it, then continued on down to the river.

  The girl rode on without glancing back. Moments later List and Duiker reached the stone edifice and clambered up on its ragged but wide top.

  'Look south,' List said, pointing.

  Dust rose in a gold haze from the line of hills beyond the heaving mass of refugees.

  'Coltaine and his Crows are in a fight,' List said.

  Duiker nodded. 'There's a village on the other side of those hills, right?'

  'Yes, sir. L'enbarl, it's called. The scrap looks to be on the road linking it to the ford. We haven't seen the Sialk cavalry, so it's likely Reloe sent them around to try and take our flank. Like Coltaine always says, the man's predictable.'

  Duiker faced north. The other side of the island consisted of marsh grasses filling the old oxbow channel. The far side was a narrow stand of dead leadwood trees, then a broad slope leading to a steep-sided hill. The regularity of that hill suggested that it was a tel. Commanding its flat plateau was an army, weapons and armour glinting in the morning light. Heavy infantry. Dark banners rose amidst large tents behind two front-line legions of Tithansi archers. The archers had begun moving down the slope.

  'That's Kamist Reloe and his hand-picked elites,' List said. 'He's yet to use them.'

  To the east the feints and probes between the Weasel Clan's horsewarriors and their Tithansi and Hissari counterparts continued, while the Sialk and Hissar infantry steadily closed the distance to the Wickan defences. Behind these legions, the peasant army swirled in restless motion.

  'If that horde decides to charge,' Duiker said, 'our lines won't hold.'

  'They'll charge,' List affirmed grimly. 'If we're lucky, they'll wait too long and give us room to fall back.'

  'That's the kind of risk Hood loves,' the historian muttered.

  'The ground under them whispers fear. They won't be moving for a while.'

  'Do I see control on all sides, or the illusion of control?'

  List's face twisted slightly. 'Sometimes the two are one and the same. In terms of their effect, I mean. The only difference—or so Coltaine says—is that when you bloody the real thing, it absorbs the damage, while the other shatters.'

  Duiker shook his head. 'Who would have imagined a Wickan warleader to think of war in such… alchemical terms? And you, Corporal, has he made you his protege?'

  The young man looked dour. 'I kept dying in the war games. Gave me lots of time to stand around and eavesdrop.'

  The cattle were moving more quickly now, plunging into the stationary clouds of dust masking the ford. If anything, to Duiker's eyes the heaving flow was too quick. 'Four and a half feet deep, over four hundred paces… those animals should be crossing at a crawl. More, how to hold the herds to the shallows? Those dogs will have to swim, the drovers will get pushed off to the deeps, and with all that dust, who can see a damned thing down there?'

  List said nothing.

  Thunder sounded on the other side of the ford, followed by rapid percussive sounds. Columns of smoke pillared upward and the air was suddenly febrile. Sorcery. The Semk wizard-priests. A lone child to oppose them. 'This is all taking too long,' Duiker snapped. 'Why in Hood's name did it take all night just to get the wagons across? It will be dark before the refugees even move.'

  'They're closing,' List said. His face was covered in dust-smeared sweat.

  To the east the Sialk and Hissar infantry had made contact with the outer defences. Arrows swarmed the air. Weasel Clan horsewarriors battled on two sides—against Tithansi lancers at the front, and pike-wielding infantry on their right flank. They were struggling to withdraw. Holding the earthen defences were Captain Lull's marines, Wickan archers and a scattering of auxiliary units. They were yielding the first breastworks to the hardened infantry. The horde had begun to boil on the slopes beyond.

  To the north the two legions of Tithansi archers were rushing forward for the cover of the leadwoods. From there they would start killing cattle. There was no-one to challenge them.

  'And so it shatters,' Duiker said.

  'You're as bad as Reloe. Sir.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Too quick to count us out. This isn't our first engagement.'

  Faint shrieks drifted across from the leadwoods. Duiker squinted through the dust. The Tithansi archers were screaming, thrashing about, vanishing from sight in the high marsh grasses beneath the skeletal trees. 'What in Hood's name is happening to those men?'

  'An old, thirsty spirit, sir. Sormo promised it a day of warm blood. One last day. Before it dies or ceases or whatever it is spirits do when they go.'

  The archers had routed, their panicked flight tak
ing them back to the slope beneath the tel.

  'There go the last of them,' List said.

  For a moment Duiker thought the corporal referred to the Tithansi archers, then he realized, with a start, that the cattle were gone. He wheeled to face the ford, cursing at the tumbling clouds of dust. Too fast,' he muttered.

  The refugees had begun moving, streamers of humanity flowing across the old oxbow channel and onto the island. There was no semblance of order, no way to control almost thirty thousand exhausted and terrified people. And they were about to sweep over the wall where Duiker and the corporal stood.

  'We should move,' List said.

  The historian nodded. 'Where?'

  'Uh, east?'

  To where the Weasel Clan now covered the marines and other footmen as they relinquished one earthen rampart after another, the soldiers falling back so quickly that they would be at the slatted bridge in minutes. And then? Up against this mob of shrieking refugees. Oh, Hood! What now?

  List seemed to read his mind. 'They'll hold at the bridge,' he asserted. They have to. Come on!'

  Their flight took them across the front of the leading edge of the refugees. The awakened land trembled beneath them, steam rising with a reek like muddy sweat. Here and there along the east edge of the island, the ground bulged and split open. Duiker's headlong sprint faltered. Shapes were clambering from the broken earth, skeletal beneath arcane, pitted and encrusted bronze armour, battered helms with antlers on their heads and long red-stained hair hanging in matted tufts down past their shoulders. The sound that came from them chilled Duiker's soul. Laughter. Joyous laughter. Hood, are you twisting in affronted rage right now?

  'Nil,' List gasped. 'Nether's twin—that boy over there. Sormo said that this place has seen battle before—said this oxbow island wasn't natural… oh, Queen of Dreams, yet another Wickan nightmare!'

  The ancient warriors, voicing blood-curdling glee, were now breaking free of the earth all along the eastern end of the island. On Duiker's right and behind him, refugees screamed with terror, their headlong flight staggering to a halt as the horrific creatures rose among them.