A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 2

commanded it, sir.'
    Gamet sighed, walked over to the horse. He was so weak, he had trouble pulling himself onto the saddle. The others waited with maddening patience. Face burning with both effort and shame, Gamet finally clambered onto the horse, spent a moment searching for the stirrups, then took the reins from Temul. 'Lead on,' he growled to Keneb.
    They rode parallel to the wall of roaring sand, eastward, maintaining a respectable distance. Two hundred paces along they rode up to a party of five sitting motionless on
their horses. The Adjunct, Tene Baralta, Blistig, Nil and Nether.
    Sudden fear gripped Gamet. 'Adjunct! A thousand warriors could be waiting on the other side! We need the army drawn up. We need heavy infantry on the flanks. Outriders – archers – marines—'
    'That will be enough, Gamet. We ride forward now – the sun already lights the wall. Besides, can you not hear it? Its shriek is filled with fear. A new sound. A pleasing sound.'
    He stared up at the swirling barrier of sand. Yes, that is what I could sense earlier. 'Then it knows its barrier shall fail.'
    'The goddess knows,' Nether agreed.
    Gamet glanced at the two Wickans. They looked miserable, a state that seemed more or less permanent with them these days. 'What will happen when the Whirlwind falls?'
    The young woman shook her head, but it was her brother who answered, 'The Whirlwind Wall encloses a warren. Destroy the wall, and the warren is breached. Making the goddess vulnerable – had we a battalion of Claw and a half-dozen High Mages, we could hunt her down and kill her. But we can achieve no such thing.' He threw up his hands in an odd gesture. 'The Army of the Apocalypse will remain strengthened by her power. Those soldiers will never break, will fight on to the bitter end. Especially given the likelihood that that end will be ours, not theirs.'
    'Your predictions of disaster are unhelpful, Nil,' the Adjunct murmured. 'Accompany me, all of you, until I say otherwise.'
    They rode closer to the Whirlwind Wall, leaning in the face of the fierce, battering wind and sand. Fifteen paces from its edge, the Adjunct raised a hand. Then she dismounted, one gloved hand closing on the grip of her sword as she strode forward.
    The rust-hued otataral blade was halfway out of its scabbard when a sudden silence descended, and before
them the Whirlwind Wall's stentorian violence died, in tumbling clouds of sand and dust. The hiss of sifting rose into the storm's mute wake. A whisper. Burgeoning light. And, then, silence.
    The Adjunct wheeled, shock writ on her features.
    'She withdrew!' Nil shouted, stumbling forward. 'Our path is clear!'
    Tavore threw up a hand to halt the Wickan. 'In answer to my sword, Warlock? Or is this some strategic ploy?'
    'Both, I think. She would not willingly take such a wounding, I think. Now, she will rely upon her mortal army.'
    The dust was falling like rain, in waves lit gold by the rising sun. And the Holy Desert's heartland was gradually becoming visible through gaps in the dying storm. There was no waiting horde, Gamet saw with a flood of relief. Naught but more wastes, with something like an escarpment on the northeast horizon, falling away as it proceeded west, where strangely broken hills ran in a natural barrier.
    The Adjunct climbed back onto her horse. 'Temul. I want scouts out far ahead. I do not believe there will be any more raids. Now, they wait for us, at a place of their own choosing. It falls to us to find it.'
    And then will come the battle. The death, of hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers. The Adjunct, as the fist of the Empress. And Sha'ik, Chosen servant of the goddess. A clash of wills, nothing more. Yet it will decide the fate of hundreds of thousands.
    I want nothing to do with this.
    Tene Baralta had drawn his horse alongside Gamet. 'We need you now more than ever,' the Red Blade murmured as the Adjunct, with renewed energy, continued conveying orders to the officers now riding up from the main camp.
    'You do not need me at all,' Gamet replied.
    'You are wrong. She needs a cautious voice—'
    'A coward's voice, is the truth of it, and no, she does not need that.'
    'There is a fog that comes in battle—'
    'I know. I was a soldier, once. And I did well enough at that. Taking orders, commanding no-one but myself. Occasionally a handful, but not thousands. I was at my level of competence, all those years ago.'
    'Very well then, Gamet. Become a soldier once more. One who just