Dust of Dreams

is capable of taking you back to Darujhistan?’
    ‘If she isn’t we’re stuck and it’s time to start learning the local tongue from Setoc. But she can’t be from here anyway, can she? This land is blasted. Quell says it’s used up. Exhausted. No one can live here.’
    ‘The cut of Setoc’s clothing is Barghast,’ said Mappo. He scratched the bristle on his jaw. ‘And since that boy has, I think, Barghast blood . . .’ He raised his voice and, in Barghast, called over to Setoc, ‘Do we share this language between us, Destriant Setoc?’
    At the question all four newcomers looked over. And Setoc said, ‘It seems we do.’
    ‘Nice guess,’ said Faint.
    ‘Observation and theory,’ Mappo replied. ‘Now, you can rest for a short time. I mean to get the story of these strangers. I will be back to wake you anon.’
    ‘Can’t wait,’ Faint muttered.
     
    ‘If no solution serves,’ ventured Shield Anvil Tanakalian, ‘then what remains to us? We must proceed on the path we have always known, until some other alternative presents itself.’ He held his gaze on the entourage of Queen Abrastal as it slowly drew closer, the dozen or so horses gently cantering across the uneven ground, the pennons above the riders flapping like impaled birds.
    Beside him, Mortal Sword Krughava shifted heavily on her saddle. Leather creaked, iron scraped. ‘The absence haunts,’ she said. ‘It gapes at our side, sir.’
    ‘Then choose one, Mortal Sword. Be done with it.’
    Her expression darkened beneath the rim of her helm. ‘You truly advise this, Shield Anvil? Am I to be so desperate as to be careless? Must I swallow my dissatisfaction? I have done this once already, sir, and I begin to find regret in that.’
    Once already? You miserable witch. I took that sour face of yours to be the one you always wear. Now you tell me I was a choice made without confidence. Did that old man talk you into it, then? But between you and me, woman, only I was witness to his bitter dissatisfaction at the very end. So, in your mind he still argues in my favour. Well enough.
‘It grieves me, Mortal Sword, to hear you say this. I do not know how I have failed you, nor do I know what reparation remains available to me.’
    ‘My indecision, sir, stings you into impatience. You urge action without contemplation, but if the selection of a new Destriant does not demand contemplation, what possibly can? In your mind, it would seem, these are but titles. Responsibilities one grows into, as it were. But the truth of it is, the title awaits only those who have already grown into a person worthy of the responsibility. From you, I receive all the irritation of a young man convinced of his own rightness, as young men generally are, said conviction leading you into rash impulses and ill-considered advice. Now I ask that you be silent. The Queen arrives.’
    Tanakalian struggled against his fury, endeavouring to hold flat his expression in the face of the Bolkando riders.
You strike me in the moment before this parley, to test my self-control. I know all your tactics, Mortal Sword. You shall not best me.
    Queen Abrastal wasted little time. ‘We have met with the Saphii emissary, and I am pleased to inform you that resupply is forthcoming—at a reasonable price, I might add. Generous of them, all things considered.’
    ‘Indeed, Highness,’ said Krughava.
    ‘Furthermore,’ Abrastal continued, ‘the Malazan columns have been sighted by the Saphii, almost due north of the Saphii Mountains, approaching the very edge of the Wastelands. They have made good time. Curiously, your allies are with escort—none other than Prince Brys Beddict, in command of a Letherii army.’
    ‘I see,’ said Krughava. ‘And this Letherii army now marches well beyond Lether’s borders, suggesting their role as escort was not precautionary.’
    The Queen’s eyes sharpened. ‘As I said, most curious, Mortal Sword.’ She paused, and then said, ‘It has become obvious to me that, of all the luminaries involved in this escapade, I alone remain ignorant.’
    ‘Highness?’
    ‘Well, you are all marching
somewhere
, yes? Into the Wastelands, no less. And through them, in fact, into Kolanse. My warnings to you of the grim—no, horrifying—situation in that distant land appear to have gone unheeded.’
    ‘On the contrary, Queen Abrastal,’ said Krughava, ‘we heed them most assiduously, and hold your concern in the highest regard.’
    ‘Then answer me, do you