Renarr could see how the blood now covered one half of the girl’s face.
The boy made a sharp turn moments before she reached him, rushing out towards the distant enemy.
Catching up again, the girl pushed with both arms, sending the boy tumbling. He rolled and sought to regain his feet but she was quicker, driving him down with her knees, and only now did Renarr see the large rock in her right hand.
The shouts from the skirmishers fell away, as the girl brought the stone down on the boy’s head, again and again. The waving arms and kicking legs of the boy flopped out to the sides and did not move as the girl continued driving the rock down.
‘Pay up, Srilla!’ cried one of the whores. ‘I took your wager, so pay up!’
Renarr pulled her robe tighter about herself. She saw a skirmisher move nearer the girl, and say something to her. When it was clear that she was not hearing his words, he edged closer and cuffed the side of her head. Dropping his javelin, he grasped the girl’s arms and forced the bloodied stone from her small hands. Then he shoved her away.
She stumbled off, looking up and seeing, as if for the first time, where her hunt had taken her. Once again her long legs flashe
d as she ran back towards her hill, but she ran as one drunk on wine.
The body of the boy was small and bedraggled, spreadeagled like the remnant of some grisly sacrifice, and the skirmishers gave it a wide berth as they advanced.
‘Now that’s the way to start a war!’ the whore cried, holding up a fist clutching her winnings.
* * *
The captains and their messengers clustered around Lord Ilgast Rend. For all that the nobleborn commander looked solid, heavy in his well-worn armour and bearing a visage betraying nothing but confidence as he sat astride his warhorse, Havaral fought against a cold dread. There was a hollow pit in his gut that no bravado could fill.
He remained at the outer edge of this cluster of officers, with Sergeant Kullis at his side, to act as a rider and flag-crier once the orders were given.
Flat-faced and dour, Kullis was a man of few words, so when he spoke Havaral was startled. ‘It is said every army is like a body, a thing of flesh, bone and blood. And of course, the one who commands can be said to be its head, its brain.’ The sergeant’s voice was pitched low. It was unlikely that anyone else could make out his words.
‘This is not the time, sergeant,’ Havaral said in a soft growl, ‘to raise matters of faith.’
As if unwilling to be dissuaded, Kullis continued, ‘But an army also possesses a heart, a slow-beating drum in the very centre of its chest. A true commander knows that he or she must command that first, before all else.’
‘Kullis, that will be enough.’
‘Today, sir, the heart commands the head.’
The sergeant’s methodical thinking had made slow and measured steps, arriving at a truth Havaral had understood with the man’s first words. Lord Ilgast Rend was too angry, and the drumbeat’s ever quickening pace had brought them headlong to this ridge, beneath this cold morning sky. The enemy facing them here were, one and all, heroes of Kurald Galain. Worse, they had not marched on the Wardens, and so had offered no direct provocation.
It will be simple, then, to set the charge of this civil war’s beginning at the feet of Lord Ilgast Rend. And us Wardens.
‘We wonder, sir,’ Kullis then said, turning to look upon his captain, ‘when you will speak.’
‘Speak? What do you mean?’
‘Who better knows the mind of Calat—’
‘Calat Hustain is not here.’
‘Lord Ilgast—’
‘Was given command of the Wardens. Sergeant, who is this “we” you speak of?’
Kullis snorted. ‘Your kin, sir. All of whom are now looking to you. This moment, sir. They are looking to you.’
‘I conveyed Hunn Raal’s words,’ Havaral said, ‘and the lord chooses to answer them.’
‘Yes sir, I see the knife in his hand. But we sacks of blood now bear beads of sweat.’
Havaral looked away. The sickness pooling in his stomach churned. His eyes travelled down the length of the Wardens waiting on their wood-armoured horses, the breaths of the beasts softly pluming, the occasional head tossing amidst the mosquitoes. His kin were motionless in their saddles, their lacquered, banded-wood breastplates gleaming in the bright sunlight. Beneath the rims of their helmets he saw, one after another, faces too young for this.