Gesler tugged off his helm and grinned at Fiddler. ‘Speak for yourself, Fid.’
Hair of spun gold. ‘Hood take me,’ Fiddler muttered, ‘that’s about as obnoxious a thing as I’ve ever seen.’
Another helping hand, lifting Beak to his feet. He looked round. Nothing much to see. White sand, a gate of white marble ahead, within which swirled silver light.
The hand gripping his arm was skeletal, the skin a strange hue of green. The figure, very tall, was hooded and wearing black rags. It seemed to be studying the gate.
‘Is that where I’m supposed to go, now?’ Beak asked.
‘Yes.’
‘All right. Are you coming with me?’
‘No.’
‘All right. Well, will you let go of my arm, then?’
The hand fell away. ‘It is not common,’ the figure then said.
‘What?’
‘That I attend to… arrivals. In person.’
‘My name is Beak.’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s through there?’
‘Your brother waits for you, Beak. He has been waiting a long time.’
Beak smiled and stepped forward, all at once in a great hurry-the silver light within that gate was beautiful, reminding him of something.
The stranger’s voice brought him round: ‘Beak.’
‘Yes?’
‘Your brother. He will not know you. Yet. Do you understand?’
Beak nodded. ‘Why aren’t you coming with me?’
‘I choose to wait… for another.’
‘My brother,’ Beak said, his smile broadening. ‘I’m taller now. Stronger. I can save him, can’t I?’
A long pause, and then the figure said, ‘Yes, Beak, you can save him.’
Yes, that made sense. He set out again. With sure strides. To the gate, into that silver glow, to emerge on the other side in a glade beside a trickling stream. And kneeling near the bank, his brother. The same as he remembered. On the ground on all sides there were hundreds of small wax figures. Smiling faces, an entire village, maybe even a whole town.
Beak walked up to his brother.
Who said, too shy to look up, ‘I made all of these, for him.’
‘They’re beautiful,’ Beak said, and he found tears running down his face, which embarrassed him so he wiped them away. Then asked, ‘Can I play with you?’
His brother hesitated, scanning all the figures, then he nodded. ‘All right.’
And so Beak knelt down beside his brother.
While, upon the other side of the gate, the god Hood stood, motionless. Waiting.
A third army rose from the seabed to conquer the others. An army of mud, against whom no shield could defend, through whom no sword could cut to the quick. The precious islands of canvas were how twisted jumbles, fouling the foot, wrapping tight about legs, or pushed down entirely beneath thick silts. Grey-smeared soldier struggled against grey-smeared warrior, locked together in desperation, rage and terror.
The seething mass had become an entity, a chaotic beast writhing and foundering in the mud, and from it rose the deafening clangour of clashing metal and voices erupting in pain and dying.
Soldiers and warriors fell, were then pushed down amidst grey and red, where they soon merged with the ground. Shield walls could not hold, advances were devoured; the battle had become that of individuals sunk to their knees, thrashing in the press.
The beast heaved back and forth, consuming itself in its madness, and upon either side those who commanded sent yet more into the maelstrom.
The wedge of Letherii heavy infantry should have swept the Awl aside, but the weight of their armour became a curse-the soldiers could not move fast enough to exploit breaches, were sluggish in shoring up their own. Fighters became mired, finding themselves suddenly separated from their comrades, and the Awl would then close in, surrounding the soldier, cutting and stabbing until the Letherii went down. Wherever the Letherii could concentrate in greater numbers-from three to thirty-they delivered mayhem, killing scores of their less disciplined enemy. But always, before long, the mud reached up, pulled the units apart.
Along the western edge, for a time, the K’Chain Che’Malle appeared, racing along the flank, unleashing dreadful slaughter.
Bivatt sent archers and spear-wielding skirmishers and, with heavy losses, they drove the two demons away-studded with arrows, the female limping from a deeply driven spear in her left thigh. The Atri-Preda would have then despatched her Bluerose cavalry to pursue the creatures, but she had lost them somewhere to the northeast-where they still pursued the few surviving Awl cavalry-and in any case, the Kechra remained on the seabed, spraying mud with every elongated stride, circling round towards the eastern side of the locked armies.
And, should they attack there, the Atri-Preda had few soldiers left to give answer: only two hundred skirmishers who, without the protection of archers, could do little more than provide a modest wall of spears guarding barely a quarter of the Letherii flank.
Seated atop her restless horse on the rise of the old shoreline, Bivatt cursed in the name of every god she could think of-those damned Kechra! Were they truly unkill-able? No, see the wounded one! Heavy spears can hurt them-Errant take me, do I have a choice?
