Almost as ridiculous as this mosaic floor with its glowing armies. Images of lizard warriors locked in war, long-tails against short-tails, with the long-tails doing most of the dying, as far as he could tell. The bizarre slaughter beneath their feet spilled out into the adjoining rooms, each one, it seemed, devoted to the heroic death of some champion-Fouled K’ell, Naw’rhuk Adat and Matrons, said Silchas Ruin as, enwreathed in sorcerous light, he explored each such side chamber, his interest desultory and cursory at best. In any case, Udinaas could read enough into the colourful scenes to recognize a campaign of mutual annihilation, with every scene of short-tail victory answered with a Matron’s sorcerous conflagration. The winners never won because the losers refused to lose. An insane war.
Seren Pedac was in the lead, twenty paces ahead, and Udinaas saw her halt and suddenly crouch, one hand lift-i ng. The air sweeping in was rich with the scent of loam and wood dust. The mouth of the tunnel was small, overdrawn and half blocked by angled fragments of basalt from what had once been an-arched gate, and beyond was darkness.
Seren Pedac waved the rest forward. ‘I will scout out ahead,’ she whispered as they gathered about just inside the cave mouth. ‘Did anyone else notice that there were no hats in that last stretch? That floor was clean.’
‘There are sounds beyond human hearing,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘The flow of air is channelled through vents and into tubes behind the walls, producing a sound that perturbs bats, insects, rodents and the like. The Short-Tails were skilied at such things.’
‘So, not magic, then?’ Seren Pedac asked. ‘No wards or curses here?’
‘No.’
Udinaas rubbed at his face. His beard was filthy, and there were things crawling in the snarls of hair. ‘Just find out if we’re on the right side of that damned fort, Acquitor.’
‘I was making sure I wouldn’t trip some kind of ancient ward stepping outside, Indebted, something that all these broken boulders suggests has happened before. Unless of course you want to rush out there yourself.’
‘Now why would I do that?’ Udinaas asked. ‘Ruin gave you your answer, Seren Pedac; what are you waiting for?’
‘Perhaps,’ Fear Sengar said, ‘she waits for you to be quiet. We shall all, I suppose, end up waiting for ever in that regard.’
‘Tormenting you, Fear, gives me my only pleasure.’
‘A sad admission indeed,’ Seren Pedac murmured, then edged forward, over the tumbled rocks, and into the night beyond.
Udinaas removed his pack and settled down on the littered floor, dried leaves crunching beneath him. He leaned against a tilted slab of stone and stretched out his legs.
Fear moved up to crouch at the very edge of the cave mouth.
Humming to herself, Kettle wandered off into a nearby side chamber.
Silchas Ruin stood regarding Udinaas. ‘I am curious,’ he said after a time. ‘What gives your life meaning, Letherii?’
‘That’s odd. I was just thinking the same of you, Tiste Andii.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Why would I lie?’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’
‘All right,’ Udinaas said. ‘You have a point.’
‘So you will not answer my question.’
‘You first.’
‘I do not disguise what drives me.’
‘Revenge? Well, fine enough, I suppose, as a motivation
– at least for a while and maybe a while is all you’re really interested in. But let’s be honest here, Silchas Ruin: as the sole meaning for existing, it’s a paltry, pathetic cause.’
‘Whereas you claim to exist to torment Fear Sengar.’
‘Oh, he manages that all on his own.’ Udinaas shrugged. ‘The problem with questions like that is, we rarely find meaning to what we do until well after we’ve done it. At that point we come up with not one but thousands-reasons, excuses, justifications, heartfelt defences. Meaning? Really, Silchas Ruin, ask me something interesting.’
‘Very well. I am contemplating challenging our pursuers
– no more of this unnecessary subterfuge. It offends my nature, truth be told.’
At the tunnel mouth, Fear turned to regard the Tiste Andii. ‘You will kick awake a hornet’s nest, Silchas Ruin. Worse, if this fallen god is indeed behind Rhulad’s power, you might find yourself suffering a fate far more dire than millennia buried in the ground.’
‘Fear’s turning into an Elder before our eyes,’ Udinaas said. ‘Jumping at shadows. You want to take on Rhulad and Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan, Silchas Ruin, you have my blessing. Grab the Errant by the throat and tear this empire to pieces. Turn it all into ash and dust. Level the whole damned continent, Tiste Andii-we’ll just stay here in this cave. Come collect us when you’re finished.’
Fear bared his teeth at Udinaas. ‘Why would he bother sparing us?’
‘I don’t know,’ the ex-slave replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘Pity?’
Kettle spoke from the side chamber’s arched doorway. ‘Why don’t any of you like each other? I like all of you. Even Wither.’
‘It’s all right,’ Udinaas said, ‘we’re all just tortured by who we are, Kettle.’
No-one said much after that.
Seren Pedac reached the edge of the forest, keeping low to remain level with the stunted trees. The air was thin and cold at this altitude. The stars overhead were bright and sharp, the dust-shrouded crescent moon still low on the horizon to the north. Around her was whispered motion through the clumps of dead leaves and lichen-a kind of scaled mouse ruled the forest floor at night, a species she had never seen before. They seemed unusually fearless, so much so that more than one had scampered across her boots. No predators, presumably. Even so, their behaviour was odd.
Before her stretched a sloped clearing, sixty or more paces, ending at a rutted track. Beyond it was a level stretch of sharp, jagged stones, loose enough to be treacherous. The fort squatting in the midst of this moat of rubble was stone-walled, thick at the base and tapering sharply to twice the height of a man. The corner bastions were massive, squared and flat-topped. On those platforms were swivel-mounted ballestae. Seren could make out huddled figures positioned around the nearest one, while other soldiers were visible, shoulders and heads, walking the raised platform on the other side of the walls.
As she studied the fortification, she heard the soft clunk of armour and weapons to her left. She shrank back as a patrol appeared on the rutted track. Motionless, breath held, she watched them amble past.
After another twenty heartbeats, she turned about and made her way back through the stunted forest. She almost missed the entrance to the cave mouth, a mere slit of black behind high ferns beneath a craggy overhang of tilted, layered granite. Pushing through, she stumbled into Fear Sengar.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘We were beginning to worry, or, at least,’ he added, ‘I was.’
She gestured him back into the cave.
‘Good news,’ she said once they were inside. ‘We’re behind the garrison-the pass ahead should be virtually unguarded-’
‘There are K’risnan wards up the trail,’ Silchas Ruin cut in. ‘Tell me of this garrison, Acquitor.’
Seren closed her eyes. Wards? Errant take us, what game is Hannan Mosag playing here? ‘I could smell horses from the fort. Once we trip those wards they’ll be after us, and we can’t outrun mounted soldiers.’
‘The garrison,’ Silchas said.
She shrugged. ‘The fort looks impregnable. I’d guess (here’s anywhere between a hundred and two hundred soldiers there. And with that many there’s bound to be mages, as well as a score or more Tiste Edur.’
‘Silchas Ruin is tired of being chased,’ Udinaas said from where he lounged, back resting on a stone slab.
Dread filled Seren Pedac at these words. ‘Silchas, can we not go round these wards?’
‘No.’
She glanced across at Fear Sengar, saw suspicion and unease in the warrior’s expression, but he would not meet her eyes. What conversation did 1 just miss here? ‘You are no stranger to sorcery, Silchas Ruin. Could you put everyone in that fort to sleep or something? Or cloud their minds, make them confused?’