‘Three?’
Heboric smiled. ‘You are not aware of it, but there is a certain… poetry to there being three of us.’
‘Very well. And how long should she expect to wait?’
‘As long as she deems acceptable, L’oric. Like you, I intend to remain here for a few days yet.’
His eyes grew veiled. ‘The convergence.’
Heboric nodded.
L’oric sighed. ‘We are fools, you and I.’
‘Probably.’
‘I had once hoped, Ghost Hands, for an alliance between us.’
‘It exists, more or less, L’oric. Sufficient to ensure Felisin’s safety. Not that we have managed well in that responsibility thus far. I could have helped,’ Heboric growled.
‘I am surprised, if you know what Bidithal did to her, that you have not sought vengeance.’
‘Vengeance? What is the point in that? No, L’oric, I have a better answer to Bidithal’s butchery. Leave Bidithal to his fate…’
The High Mage started, then smiled. ‘Odd, only a short time ago I voiced similar words to Felisin.’
Heboric watched the man walk away. After a moment, the Destriant turned and re-entered his temple.
‘There is something… inexorable about them…’
They were in the path of the distant legions, seeing the glimmer of iron wavering like molten metal beneath a pillar of dust that, from this angle, seemed to rise straight up, spreading out in a hazy stain in the high desert winds. At Leoman’s words, Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas shivered. Dust was sifting down the folds of his ragged telaba; the air this close to the Whirlwind Wall was thick with suspended sand, filling his mouth with grit.
Leoman twisted in his saddle to study his warriors.
Anchoring his splintered lance into the stirrup cup, Corabb settled back in the saddle. He was exhausted. Virtually every night, they had attempted raids, and even when his own company had not been directly involved in the fighting there had been retreats to cover, counter-attacks to blunt, then flight. Always flight. Had Sha’ik given Leoman five thousand warriors, the Adjunct and her army would be the ones retreating. All the way back to Aren, mauled and limping.
Leoman had done what he could with what he had, however, and they had purchased-with blood-a handful of precious days. Moreover, they had gauged the Adjunct’s tactics, and the mettle of the soldiers. More than once, concerted pressure on the regular infantry had buckled them, and had Leoman the numbers, he could have pressed home and routed them. Instead, Gall’s Burned Tears would arrive, or Wickans, or those damned marines, and the desert warriors would be the ones fleeing. Out into the night, pursued by horse warriors as skilled and tenacious as Leoman’s own.
Seven hundred or so remained-they’d had to leave so many wounded behind, found and butchered by the Khundryl Burned Tears, with various body parts collected as trophies.
Leoman faced forward on his saddle once more. ‘We are done.’
Corabb nodded. The Malazan army would reach the Whirlwind Wall by dusk. ‘Perhaps her otataral will fail,’ he offered. ‘Perhaps the goddess will destroy them all this very night.’
The lines bracketing Leoman’s blue eyes deepened as he narrowed his gaze on the advancing legions. ‘I think not. There is nothing pure in the Whirlwind’s sorcery, Corabb. No, there will be a battle, at the very edge of the oasis. Korbolo Dom will command the Army of the Apocalypse. And you and I, and likely Mathok, shall find ourselves a suitable vantage point… to watch.’
Corabb leaned to one side and spat.
‘Our war is done,’ Leoman finished, collecting his reins.
‘Korbolo Dom will need us,’ Corabb asserted.
‘If he does, then we have lost.’
They urged their weary horses into motion, and rode through the Whirlwind Wall.
He could ride at a canter for half a day, dropping the Jhag horse into a head-dipping, loping gait for the span of a bell, then resume the canter until dusk. Havok was a beast unlike any other he had known, including his namesake. He had ridden close enough to the north side of Ugarat to see watchers on the wall, and indeed they had sent out a score of horse warriors to contest his crossing the broad stone bridge spanning the river-riders who should have reached it long before he did.
But Havok had understood what was needed, and canter stretched out into gallop, neck reaching forward, and they arrived fifty strides ahead of the pursuing warriors. Foot traffic on the bridge scattered from their path, and its span was wide enough to permit easy passage around the carts and wagons. Broad as the Ugarat River was, they reached the other side within a dozen heartbeats, the thunder of Havok’s hoofs changing in timbre from stone to hard-packed earth as they rode out into the Ugarat Odhan.