The blood leaving the lad's face bespoke another vision flooding his mind, a world and a time seen through unhuman eyes. After a moment he shuddered, wiping sweat from his face. 'I'll show you.'
They moved through the quiet press in silence. The efforts at making camp they saw on all sides looked wooden, refugees and soldiers alike moving as automatons. No-one bothered attempting to erect tents; they simply laid out their bedrolls on the flat rock. Children sat unmoving, watching with the eyes of old men and women.
The Wickan camps were no better. There was no escape from what had been, from the images and remembered scenes that rose again and again, remorselessly, before the mind's eye. Every frail, mundane gesture of normal life had shattered beneath the weight of knowledge.
Yet there was anger, white hot and buried deep, out of sight, as if mantled in peat. It had become the last fuel with any potency.
Arriving at the vanguard, they came upon a scene. Coltaine, Bult and Captain Lull were present, and facing them in a ragged line ten paces away were the last of the Engineers.
The Fist turned as Duiker and List approached. 'Ah, this is well. I would have you witness this, Historian.'
'What have I missed?'
Bult grinned. 'Nothing; we've just managed the prodigious task of assembling the sappers — you'd think battles with Kamist Reloe were tactical nightmares. Anyway, here they are, looking like they're waiting to be ambushed, or worse.'
'And are they, Uncle?'
The commander's grin broadened. 'Maybe.'
Coltaine now stepped towards the assembled soldiers. 'Symbols of bravery and gestures of recognition can only ring hollow — this I know, yet what else is left to me? Three clan leaders have come to me, each begging to approach you men and women with an offer of formal adoption to their clan. Perhaps you are unaware of what such unprecedented requests reveal … or perhaps, judging by your expressions, you know. I felt need to answer on your behalf, for I know more of you soldiers than do most Wickans, including those clan leaders, and they have each humbly withdrawn their requests.'
He was silent for a long moment.
'Nonetheless,' Coltaine finally continued, 'I would have you know, they meant to honour you.'
'So, I am left with the traditions of the Malazan Empire. There were enough witnesses at the Crossing to weave in detail the tapestry of your deeds, and among all of you, including your fallen comrades, the natural leadership of one was noted again and again. Without it, the day would have been truly lost.'
The sappers did not move, their scowls if anything deeper, more fierce.
Coltaine moved to stand before one man. Duiker recalled him well — a squat, hairless, immeasurably ugly sapper, his eyes thin slashes, his nose a flattened spread of angles and crooks. Audaciously, he wore fragments of armour that Duiker recognized as taken from a commander of the Apocalypse, though the helm tied to his belt was something that could have adorned an antique shop in Darujhistan. Another object that hung from his belt was difficult to identify, and it was a moment before the historian realized he was looking at the battered remnant of a shield: two reinforced grips behind a mangled plate-sized flap of bronze. A large, blackened crossbow hung from one shoulder, so covered and entwined with twigs, branches and other camouflage as to make it seem the man carried a bush.
'I believe the time has come,' Coltaine said, 'for a promotion. You are now a sergeant, soldier.'
The man said nothing, his eyes narrowing to the thinnest of slits.
'I think a salute would be appropriate,' Bult growled.
One of the other sappers cleared his throat and nervously yanked at his moustache.
Captain Lull rounded on the man. 'Got something to say about this, soldier?'
'Not much,' the man muttered.
'Out with it.'
The soldier shrugged. 'Well, only … he was a captain not two minutes ago, sir. The Fist's just demoted him. That's Captain Mincer, sir. Commands the Engineers. Or did.'
