Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

Pithy shouted from a position directly behind Yedan: ‘ More than half through, Watch! ’

The armed foes that fell to his soldiers either reeled back or collapsed at their feet. These latter ones gave up the weapons they held to more of the two captains’ guards, who reached through quick as cats to snatch them away before the attackers could recover them. The two women were busy arming others to bolster their rearguard-Yedan could imagine no other reason for the risky-and, truth be told, irritating-tactic.

His soldiers were tiring-it had been some time since they’d last worn full armour. He’d been slack in keeping them fit. Too much riding, not enough marching. When had any of them last drawn blood? The Edur invasion for most of them.

They were paying for it now. Ragged gasps, slowing arms, stumbles.

‘Back one step!’

The line edged back-

‘Now forward! Hard!’

The mob had seen that retreat as a victory, the beginnings of a rout. The sudden attack into their faces shocked them, their weapons unreadied, their minds on everything but defence. That front line melted, as did the one behind it, and then a third. Yedan and his soldiers-knowing that this was their last push-fought like snarling beasts.

And all at once, the hundreds crowding before them suddenly scattered-the rough ranks shattering. Weapons thrown aside, fleeing as fast as legs could carry them, down the strand, out into the shallows. Scores were trampled, driven into mud or stones or water. Fighting broke out in desperate efforts to clear paths through.

Yedan withdrew his troop. They staggered back to the waiting rearguard-who looked upon them in silence, perhaps disbelieving.

‘Attend to the wounded,’ barked Yedan, lifting his cheek grilles to cool his throbbing face, snatching in deep breaths.

‘We can get moving now,’ Brevity said, tugging at his shield arm. ‘We can just walk on through to… wherever. You, Watch, you need to be in charge of the Shake army, did you know that?’

‘The Shake have no army-’

‘They better get one and soon.’

‘Besides, I am an outlaw-I slaughtered-’

‘We know what you did. You’re an Errant-damned up-the-wall madman, Yedan Derryg. Best kinda commander an army could have.’

Pithy said, ‘Leave the petitioning to us, sweetie.’ And she smiled.

He looked round. One wounded. None dead. None dead that counted, anyway. Screams of pain rose from the killing field. He paid that no attention, simply sheathed his sword.

When Yedan Derryg walked into the fading portalway-the last of them all-he did not look back. Not once.

There was great joy in discarding useless words. Although one could not help but measure each day by the sun’s fiery passage through the empty sky, and each night by the rise and set of a haze-shrouded moon and the jade slashes cutting across the starscape, the essential meaning of time had vanished from Badalle’s mind. Days and nights were a tumbling cavort, round and round with no beginning and no end. Jaws to tail. They rolled on and left nothing but a scattering of motionless small figures collapsed on to the plain. Even the ribbers had abandoned them.

Here, at the very edge of the Glass, there were only the opals-fat carrion beetles migrating in from the blasted, lifeless flanks to either side of the trail. And the diamonds-glittering spiked lizards that sucked blood from the fingertips their jaws clamped tight round every night-diamonds becoming rubies as they grew engorged. And there were the Shards, the devouring locusts sweeping down in glittering storms, stripping children almost where they stood, leaving behind snarls of rags, tufts of hair and pink bones.

Insects and lizards ruled this scorched realm. Children were interlopers, invaders. Food.

Rutt had tried to lead them round the Glass, but there was no way around that vast blinding desert. A few of them gathered after the second night. They had been walking south, and at this day’s end they had found a sinkhole filled with bright green water. It tasted of limestone dust and made many children writhe in pain, clutching their stomachs. It made a few of them die.

Rutt sat holding Held, and to his left crouched Brayderal-the tall bony girl who reminded Badalle of the Quitters. She had pushed her way in, and for that Badalle did not like her, did not trust her, but Rutt turned no one away. Saddic was there as well, a boy who looked upon Badalle with abject adoration. It was disgusting, but he listened best to her poems, her sayings, and he could repeat them back to her, word for word. He said he was collecting them all. To one day make a book. A book of this journey. He believed, therefore, that they were going to survive this, and that made him a fool.

The four of them had sat, and in the silences that stretched out and round and in and through and sometimes between them all, they pondered what to do next. Words weren’t needed for that kind of conversation. And no one had the strength for gestures, either. Badalle thought that Saddic’s book should hold vast numbers of blank pages, to mark such silences and all they contained. The truths and the lies, the needs and the wants. The nows and the thens, the theres and the heres. If she saw such pages, and could crisp back each one, one after another, she would nod, remembering how it was. How it was.

It was Brayderal who stained the first blank page. ‘We got to go back.’

Rutt lifted his bloodshot eyes. He drew Held tighter against his chest. Adjusted the tattered hood, reached in a lone finger to stroke an unseen cheek.

That was his answer, and Badalle agreed with him. Yes she did. Stupid, dangerous Brayderal.

Who scratched a bit at the sores encrusting her nostrils. ‘We can’t go round it. We can only cross it. But crossing it means we all die and die bad. I’ve heard of this Glass Desert. Never crossed. No one ever crosses it. It goes on for ever, straight down the throat of the setting sun.’

Oh, Badalle liked that one. That was a good scene to keep alive in her head. Down the throat, a diamond throat, a throat of glass, sharp, so very sharp glass. And they were the snake. ‘We got thick skin,’ she said, since the page was already ruined. ‘We go down the throat. We go down it, because that’s what snakes do.’

‘Then we die.’

They all gave her silence for that. To say such things! To blot the page that way! They gave her silence. For that.

Rutt turned his head. Rutt set his eyes upon the Glass Desert. He stared that way a long, long time, as darkness quenched the glittering flats. And then he finished his looking, and he leaned forward and rocked Held to sleep. Rocked and rocked.

So it was decided. They were going into the Glass Desert.

Brayderal took a blank page for herself. She had thousands to choose from.

Badalle crawled off, trailed by Saddic, and she sat staring into the night. She threw away words. There. Here. Then. Now. When. Everybody had to cut what they carried, to cross this desert. Toss away what wasn’t needed. Even poets.

‘You have a poem,’ Saddic said, a dark shape beside her. ‘I want to hear it.’

‘I am throwing away

Words. You and me

Is a good place to start

Yesterday I woke up

With five lizards

Sucking my fingers

Like tiny pigs or rat pups

They drank down

You and me

I killed two of them

And ate what they took

But that wasn’t taking back

The words stayed gone

We got to lighten the load

Cut down on what we carry

Today I stop carrying

You

Tomorrow I stop carrying