Worse yet, he was suspicious of Rhulad’s transformation. Fear, in his youth, had displayed none of Rhulad’s strutting arrogance, his posing and posturing – all of which might well suit a leader of warriors, but not in the manner that Fear led warriors. Rhulad had been bluster, whilst Fear was quiet confidence, and Trull was not sure if that essential character trait had changed in Rhulad.
I do not belong.
The realization shocked him, slowed his steps. He looked around, feeling suddenly lost. Here, in the midst of his own people.
The Tiste Edur have changed. But I haven’t.
South, across the region known as the Swath, a deforested scrubland which had once been part of Outcry Wood, past the burnt-out town of Siege Place, and onto the slowly climbing Lookout Track towards the hills of Lookout Climb. Three days crossing the old hills – a range thoroughly denuded by wild goats – onto Moss Road. Marching northeast along the banks of the Moss River to the ford town of Ribs.
Retreating Letherii forces had stripped the countryside ahead of the emperor and his army. The military food and materiel caches that Hull Beddict knew of were all emptied. If not for the shadow wraiths, supplying the Tiste Edur army would have been impossible – the invasion would have stalled. Unacceptable, Rhulad had decided. The enemy was reeling. It was necessary to keep it so.
Udinaas remembered eating smoked eel from Moss River, one time when the trader ship had docked in Dresh. Delicious, once one got used to the furry skin, which was to be chewed but not swallowed. He had since heard, from another slave, that the eels had been transplanted into Dresh Lake, producing a strain that was both bigger and nastier. It had turned out that those eels captured in Moss River were juveniles, and few ever reached adulthood since there was a razor-jawed species of predatory fish resident in the river. No such fish in Dresh Lake. Adolescent swimmers from Dresh started disappearing before anyone realized the adult eels were responsible. Razor-jawed fish were netted from the river and tossed into the lake, but their behaviour changed, turning them into frenzy feeders. Adult swimmers from Dresh started vanishing. The slave who had been relating all this then laughed and finished with, ‘So they poisoned the whole lake, killed everything. And now no-one can swim in it!’
From this, Udinaas surmised, various lessons could be drawn, should one be inclined to draw lessons from multiple acts of stupidity.
They had camped on the road, a day’s march west of Ribs. The emperor was suffering from some kind of fever. Healers were tending to him, and the last Udinaas had heard, Rhulad was sleeping. It was late afternoon, and the sun’s light was painting the river’s surface red and gold.
Udinaas walked along the stony strand, flinging rocks out onto the water every now and then, shattering the lurid hues. At the moment, he was not feeling anything like a slave, or an Indebted. He marched in the shadow of the emperor, for all to see, for all to wonder at.
He heard boots crunching on pebbles and turned to see Hull Beddict scrambling down onto the strand. A big man, on whom every oversized muscle seemed to brood, somehow. There was fever in his eyes as well, but unlike Rhulad this heat had nothing to do with illness. ‘Udinaas.’
The slave watched the man approach, fighting his instinctive urge towards deference. The time for that was past, after all. He just wasn’t sure what belonged in its stead.
‘I have been looking for you.’
‘Why?’
‘The emperor’s condition…’
Udinaas shrugged. ‘A marsh fever, nothing more-’
‘I was not speaking of that, slave.’
‘I am not your slave, Hull Beddict.’
‘I am sorry. You are right.’
Udinaas collected another stone. He wiped the grit from its underside before throwing it out over the water. They watched it splash, then Udinaas said, ‘I understand your need to distinguish yourself from the other Letherii marching with this army. Even so, we are all bound to servitude, and the varying shades of that are not as relevant as they once were.’
‘Perhaps you have a point, Udinaas, but I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at.’
He brushed the grit from his hands. ‘Who better to teach the newly conquered Letherii than the Edur’s original Letherii slaves?’
‘You anticipate a new status for you and your fellow slaves, then?’
‘Maybe. How are the Tiste Edur to rule? Much remains to be answered, Hull Beddict. I gather you intend to involve yourself in that particular reshaping, if you can.’
The man’s smile was sour. ‘It seems I am to have little or no role in much of anything, Udinaas.’