William King - Shadowblood

The men down there were hungry and not at all in the best of health. It had been a long hard winter and disease and constant skirmishing with rebels and the undead had taken its toll. Perhaps things might have been different if he had managed to save Kathea. Perhaps the natives would not have hated them so much and fought with such fury. That was useless thinking though. Things had not fallen out the way he had hoped. They never really did.

The camp followers were already streaming out of the city, women and children and youths, pedlars and gamblers and whores, all the flotsam and jetsam that drifted in the wake of an army on the march. There were probably as many of them as there were soldiers, and they were going to suffer more on the march. For most of them it was preferable to remaining in a city where they were hated though.

Rik felt a sense of terrible foreboding. Every step towards their eventual destination was a step further away from Talorea. Every league marched was a league that lengthened their supply line and made them more vulnerable. The East was vast, and its empty plains and ancient wastelands could swallow an army far larger than Azaar’s. This was a march from which no one might come back.

The voices in his head, quiet since Asea’s potion stupefied them, whispered words of fear, told him to run away, to seek a place of safety, to put distance between himself and this doomed expedition. Instead he drew the collar of his coat tight around his neck and headed for the postern gate through which he would join up with Asea and the army.

Sardec rode along at the head of the Foragers. His destrier was gentle as such things went, easy to control even for a cripple with one hand. He kept his gaze straight ahead and his expression stern, all too aware that he was under review by his General and the citizens of Halim. The impression they made counted in many different ways.

He fought down the urge to whistle along with the fifes and flex his fingers to the beat of the drum. He watched the backs of the infantrymen in the long columns winding ahead, making sure the regulation fifty paces was between them. If a sudden order to stop came, there would be no accidental mingling of formations.

Try as he might, despite all his efforts, he wondered where Rena was, and whether he had done the right thing. The crisis of their relationship had come on so fast, a whirlwind of words that had uprooted something that had seemed so certain for so long. He had become used to having her around, and he felt her absence the way he sometimes felt the ghost of his missing hand. It was an amputation just as much as the one that had given him his hook. A part of his life was missing, and he wanted desperately to get it back.

It was ludicrous. They were marching to war and death, and he had other things to dwell on than the absence of one human. That thought was as ineffective as a prayer spoken in a nightmare to keep the dream-monsters at bay. He could only keep riding and increase the distance between himself and his woman even as he felt her tug at the direction of his thoughts like the pole star on the needle of a compass.

“I tell you they were cheating,” said Weasel. “That’s why they drew knives and accused me.”

“I see,” said the Barbarian, not seeing, which was quite normal when it came to understanding Weasel’s explanations of why things always went wrong when he was around. His feet were as heavy as lead and his heart was not in marching this morning at all. His back felt as if something might have given way last night during his final session with Shera and Annette. He wished those damned drummers would keep quiet. His head was splitting, and his stomach was as rebellious as a province full of the Clockmaker’s dupes. “Could you go and tell Sardec to get the drummers to keep the noise down? My head is splitting.”

“Certainly,” said Weasel, “And after that I will go and ask Azaar if he can give you leave to take a nap for a few hours so you can sleep off the worst of the beer.”

“It wasn’t the beer,” said the Barbarian. “It was the roasted rat. I knew I should never have touched that bloody stew. Pigeon the innkeeper called it. Since when did pigeons have four legs?”

“It’s never the beer with you, is it? It’s always the stew.” The Barbarian glared at Weasel. As always his eyes were clear and he showed not the slightest ill-effect from the previous evening’s debauchery and brawling. How could he do that? They were the same age.

“Everybody knows that Southern cooking is unhealthy. Not like herring porridge and boiled beets. Why does the army always choose to march when I have a bloody hangover- that’s what I want to know? There’s never a time when it doesn’t. Regular as clockwork. I have a hangover. The army marches.”

“Maybe if you did not drink so much to celebrate our impending departure, you would not have one.”

“How come you don’t? Watering your wine again, sticking to small beer? That’s unhealthy, not to mention unmanly.”

“A man needs a clear head when he’s playing hookjack. Otherwise he’ll never spot cheats.”

“Whatever you say. I think it’s because you can’t take your drink anymore.”

Weasel grinned. “Not like you, eh?”

“I can drink any man half my age under the table.”

“Particularly when you pick the table up and smack it down on their heads.”

The Barbarian grinned, remembering. “I did, didn’t I? Teach the bastard to spill my beer.”

“That it did.”

“When do you think we’ll be stopping?”

“The usual time, an hour or two before sunset so we can make camp.”

“Bloody hell, another six hours of bloody fife music and bloody drums. I hope we meet some Easterners later in the day. I’ll be in the mood for killing then.”

“Best hope you are. There’s going to be a lot of it about before we’re done.”

The Barbarian cast a glance at the crowds on the walls. As always, he suspected they were happy to see the soldiers go, the ungrateful civilian bastards. Still, they’d some good times back there. “We had some good times back there,” he said.

“You mean killing deaders and fighting sorcerers?”

“No, I mean in the taverns, with the girls and the beer.”

“You always say that. Every time we leave a place, you say that. I wish I had a copper coin for every time I have heard you say that.”

“It’s because it’s usually true.”

“You’re not often right, but this time you are.”

“Think they have decent brothels in Sardea?”

“Let’s hope we’re alive to find out.”

He did not sound too hopeful which worried the Barbarian. Weasel was smarter than he was and knew about such things.

The village was quiet as a grave, possibly because all of the people were dead. Their corpses lay in the street, bloated and sick-smelling. A few had been gnawed by feral dogs and hungry rats which had died in turn. Tamara could tell because their corpses lay nearby.

Her steed was frightened, and only the spell of calmness she had laid on its mind kept it from bolting. She could see now where all the tales about the end of the world had come from, and why they were spreading so quickly.

These people had not died easily. Their faces, such as were left, were twisted in ghastly rictuses, their eyes were wide and their limbs contorted as if by terrible muscular spasms. She covered her mouth with a perfumed handkerchief and looked at the nearest corpse.

Its skin was pale and bruised in places. A bird had plucked out an eye. She wondered if there was anyone alive in the village. They might be able to tell her something, or she might find out for herself what the disease was if she could see some symptoms. So far all the dead had been human. Few of their diseases affected Terrarchs, and she was protected by medicinal spells so she was not particularly worried about falling ill herself.