Erikson, Steven - Malazan 02 by Erikson Steven

Author:Erikson, Steven
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ages unveiled the Holy Desert.

Raraku was once an ochre sea.

She stood in the wind on the pride of a spire and saw ancient fleets ships of bone, sails of bleached hair, charging the crest to where the waters slipped beneath the sands of the desert to come.

The Holy Desert Anonymous

Aline of feral white goats stood on the crest of the tel known as Samon, silhouetted against a startlingly blue sky. Like bestial gods carved from marble, they watched as the vast train wound through the valley swathed in a massive cloud of dust. That they numbered seven was an omen not lost on Duiker as he rode with the south flanking patrol of Foolish Dog Wickans.

Nine hundred paces behind the historian marched five companies of the Seventh, slightly under a thousand soldiers, while the same distance behind them rode another patrol of two hundred and fifty Wickans. The three units comprised the south-facing guard for the now close to fifty thousand refugees, as well as livestock, that made up the main column, and were mirrored with similar forces on the north side. An inner ring of loyal Hissari Infantry and Marines were spread out along the column's edges -

walking alongside the hapless civilians.

A rearguard of a thousand Wickans from each of the clans rode in the train's dust over two-thirds of a league east of Duiker's position. Though split and riding in troops of a dozen or less, their task was impossible. Tithansi raiders nipped at the battered tail of the refugee column, snaring the Wickans in an eternal running skirmish. The back end of Coltaine's train was a bleeding wound never allowed to heal.

The vanguard to the refugees consisted of the surviving elements of the Seventh's attachment of medium-equipped cavalry—slightly more than two hundred riders in all. Before them rode the Malazan nobles in their carriages and wagons, flanked on either side by ten companies of the 7th Infantry. Close to a thousand additional soldiers of the Seventh - the walking wounded - provided the nobles with their own vanguard, while ahead of them rolled the wagons bearing the cutters and their more seriously injured charges. Coltaine and a thousand riders of his Crow Clan spearheaded the entire column.

But there were too many refugees and too few able combatants, and for all the Malazan efforts, Kamist Reloe's raiding parties struck like vipers in brilliantly co-ordinated mayhem. A new commander had come to Reloe's army of the Apocalypse, a nameless Tithansi warleader charged with harrying the train day and night as it crawled painfully westward - a bloodied and battered serpent that refused to die

- and this warrior now posed the most serious threat to Coltaine.

A slow, calculated slaughter. We're being toyed with. The endless dust had scratched the historian's throat raw, making every swallow agony. They were running perilously low on water, the memories of Sekala River now a parched yearning. The nightly slaughter of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats had intensified, as animals were released from suffering,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.