But they were not wearing uniforms. Not Malazan deserters, then. Or worse: survivors .
Brys slowed his horse, glanced back at her, and, seeing his relief, she nodded. He’d feared the same. But in some ways, she realized, this was even more disturbing, as if the Bonehunters had truly vanished, their fate unknown and possibly unknowable. Like ghosts.
She had to struggle against thinking of them as being already dead. In her mind rose visions of hollowed eye sockets, withered skin splitting over bones – the image was horrifying, yet it haunted her. She could see the edge of the Glass Desert off to the east, heat shimmering in a wall, rising like a barrier beyond which the soil lost all life.
They reined in. Brys studied the three strangers for a moment, and then said, ‘Welcome.’
The woman in the front turned her head and spoke to her comrades. ‘ Gesros Latherii stigan thal. Ur leszt .’
The other woman, short and plump but with the blotchy, sagging cheeks that denoted dehydration, frowned and said, ‘ Hegoran stig Daru? ’
‘ Ur hedon ap ,’ replied the first woman. She was taller than the other one, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. She had the eyes of someone used to pain. Facing Brys again, she said, ‘Latherii Ehrlii? Are you Ehrlii speak? Are you speak Latherii?’
‘Letherii,’ Brys corrected. ‘The language of the First Empire.’
‘First Empire,’ the woman repeated, matching perfectly Brys’s intonation. ‘Slums – er, lowborn stig— dialect. Ehrlitan.’
The plump woman snapped, ‘ Turul berys? Turul berys? ’
The first woman sighed. ‘Please. Water?’
Brys gestured to the preda commanding the lancers. ‘Give them something to drink. They’re in a bad way.’
‘Commander, our own supplies—’
‘Do it, Preda. Three more in our army won’t make much difference either way. And find a cutter – the sun has roasted them.’ He nodded to the first woman. ‘I am Commander Brys Beddict. We march to war, I’m afraid. You are welcome to travel with us for as long as you desire, but once we enter enemy territory, unless you remain with us, I cannot guarantee your safety.’
Of course he didn’t call himself a prince. Just a commander. Noble titles still sat uneasily with him .
The woman was slowly nodding. ‘You march south.’
‘For now,’ he replied.
‘And then?’
‘East.’
She turned to the other woman. ‘ Gesra ilit .’
‘ Ilit? Korl mestr al’ahamd .’
The woman faced Brys. ‘I named Faint. We go with you, tu — please. Ilit . East.’
Aranict cleared her throat. The inside of her mouth was stinging, had been for days. She was itchy beneath her soiled garments. She spent a moment lighting a stick of rustleaf, knowing that Brys had twisted in his saddle and was now observing her. Through a brief veil of smoke she met his eyes and said, ‘The younger one’s a mage. The man – there’s something odd about him, as if he’s only in the guise of a human, but it’s a guise that is partly torn away. Behind it …’ She shrugged, drew on her stick. ‘Like a wolf pretending to sleep. He has iron in his hands.’
Brys glanced over, frowned.
‘In the bones,’ she amended. ‘He could probably punch his way through a keep wall.’
‘ Iron , Atri-Ceda? Are you sure? How can that be?’
‘I don’t know. I might even be wrong. But you can see, he carries no weapons, and those knuckles are badly scarred. There’s a taint of the demonic about him—’ She cut herself off, as Faint was now speaking quickly to the young mage.
‘ Hed henap vil nen? Ul stig “Atri-Ceda”. Ceda ges kerallu. Ust kellan varad harada unan y? Thekel edu .’
Eyes fixed on Aranict and everyone was silent for a moment.
With narrowed gaze the young sorceress addressed Faint. ‘ Kellan varad. V’ap gerule y mest .’
Whatever she’d said did not seem to warrant a reply from Faint, who now spoke to Aranict. ‘We are lost. Seek Holds. Way home. Darujhistan. Do you kerall — er, are you, ah, caster magic? Kellan Varad? High Mage?’
Aranict glanced at Brys, who now answered her earlier shrug with one of his own. She was silent for a moment, thinking, and then she said, ‘Yes, Faint. Atri-Ceda. High Mage. I am named Aranict.’ She cocked her head and asked, ‘The Letherii you speak, it is high diction, is it not? Where did you learn it?’
Faint shook her head. ‘City. Seven Cities. Ehrlitan. Lowborn tongue, in slums. You speak like whore.’