Fist Genist D'Irdrel of Cawn took one glance at Fort Saran and despaired. A four-year stint in this sore on the hind of a mule? Why couldn't command have been moved to the settlement of Seti? Pitiable though it may be. He wiped the sweat-caked sleeve of his grey Malazan jupon once more across his face. Squinting against the glare of the sun, he studied the burnt umber of the low rolling grassland hills, the clumps of faded greenery here and there in cut streams and slumps. But what most caught his attention was the surprisingly large number of Seti camps, collections of their felt and hide tents, gathered around the fort in slums of cookfires, corralled horses and mongrel dogs. By the Gods, he vowed, someone back at staff headquarters was going to pay for this insult.
‘Not so bad if you squint real hard,’ the man riding behind remarked.
Genist swung in his saddle, glared. ‘You said something, Captain?’
The captain, newly transferred to the 15th Horse, shrugged in a way that annoyed Genist. In fact, everything about the man annoyed Genist. The man had only been with the regiment for a few weeks yet almost immediately the sergeants deferred to him – he'd seen how when he gave orders their eyes shifted edge-wise to this captain, Moss, he called himself, for confirmation. Yet there was also something about his sharp eyes, worn gloves and the equally worn sheaths of the two ivory-gripped sabres at his sides that blunted Genist's usual treatment of his subordinates.
Behind them, the double-ranked column of two thousand Malazan cavalry waited silent under the beating sun.
‘Sign the advance,’ Genist snarled to the signaller.
Captain Moss cleared his throat.
‘What now?’ Genist hissed.
The scouts haven't returned from the fort, Commander.’
‘Well, what of it? There it is! The fort! What do we need scouts for, by Hood's own eyes!’
‘It's not regulation.’
‘Regulation!’ Genist blinked, lowered his voice. ‘We're not at the front, you damned fool. This is the centre of the continent.’ Genist took a low breath, turned on the signaller. ‘The advance.’
As they rode, for once Captain Moss said nothing. The man's slowly learning his place, Genist decided. In the distance, cresting the hillocks, groups of mounted Seti cavalry raised plumes of dust into the still hot air. Gods, Genist groaned inwardly. Two years among these half-breed barbarians. What might the whores look like? Probably not a decent one in the whole plains. He squinted at the nearest horsemen – grey fur standard. Wolf soldiers. He scanned the hills, searching. There, to the rear, a white fur standard. Jackal soldiers – the legendary aristocracy of the warrior societies, sworn to the terror of the plains, Ryllandaras, the white jackal. An ancient power of the same blood, so legend went, as the First Heroes themselves. Treach, now Trake, the newly risen god of battle, among them.
Ahead, the tall double doors of Fort Saran opened. The officer of the gate saluted Genist, who nodded his acknowledgement. Within, the central marshalling grounds lay empty. A stone tower stood a squat and broad three storeys at the fort's north palisade wall. Thank the Lady for that, Genist allowed. A delegation awaited before it.
‘Order the assembly,’ he told the signaller, and urged his mount forward. To his irritation, Moss accompanied him. ‘I do not see Fist Darlat.’ Behind them, the cavalry formed up ranks on the grounds.
‘Never met her,’ said Moss.
Instead of Fist Darlat, all that awaited Genist and formal transfer of command was a motley gang of scruffy officers in faded, worn surcoats. Surely they could not be serious! True, Saran was only a fort, but command here was putative Malazan military governor of the entire Seti plains! A region as large as Dal Hon itself to the south. Was this some kind of calculated insult?
Genist pulled up his mount before the gathered officers, examined them for some sign of who was in charge, but failed. He saw no rank insignia or emblems, nothing to distinguish one from the other. They looked alike in their tanned, wind-raw faces and worn equipage. Veterans, one and all. Why here, in the middle of nowhere? Had they been recently rotated in from Seven Cities? As some of his staff suggested Moss may have been? Damn them for staring like that! How dare they?
‘Who commands here? Where is Fist Darlat?’
‘Fist Darlat is indisposed,’ said the eldest of the lot, standing on the extreme left.
Whoever this man was, he had seen many years of hard service. His hacked-short hair stood tufted in all directions. Burn wounding, perhaps. It was sun-bleached pale and grey-shot. His eyes were mere slits in a seamed, wind-scoured face. A black Seti-style recurve bow stood tall at his back.
‘And who are you?’
‘Name's Toc. Toc the Elder.’
After a moment of silence, Genist burst out laughing. ‘Surely you are joking. Not the Toc the Elder, certainly.’
‘Only one I know of.’
Genist glanced to the assembled officers – none were laughing. None, in fact, were smiling. Even Moss now suddenly wore the hardest face Genist had ever seen on the man. ‘But this is fantastic, unheard of. I thought, that is, everyone assumed … you were dead.’
‘Good.’ The man stepped up and stroked the neck of Genist's mount. ‘Fist Genist Urdrel – might I borrow your horse for a few moments?’
Genist gaped at the man. ‘I'm sorry? You'd like to what? Why?’
Captain Moss quickly dismounted. ‘Take mine, sir.’
Toc turned away from Genist. ‘Name, soldier?’
‘Moss. Captain Moss.’
‘Well, thank you, Captain Moss, for the use of your horse.’ Toc the Elder mounted, nodded to the assembled officers and cantered out to the marshalling grounds.
Two of the officers closed on Genist and pulled the reins from his hands. Genist reached for his sword.
‘Wouldn't do that,’ Moss murmured from his side. ‘We're rather outnumbered.’
Genist glared down at him. ‘I have two thousand—’
‘Do you? We'll see.’
‘What by Beru's beard do you mean by that?’
Moss lifted his chin to the grounds behind Genist who turned to stare.
Toc the Elder now walked his mount back and forth before the marshalled ranks. ‘Any veterans among you?’ he shouted in a voice that carried all the way to Genist. ‘Any old-timers from the campaigns? Sergeants? Bannermen? Do you know me? Do you recognize me? Who am I? Shout it out!’
Genist heard responses called but couldn't make out the words. A general mutter swelled among the ranks. Heads turned to exchange words.
‘Do you know me?’ Toc shouted. ‘I was flank commander under Dassem at Valan when Tali fell! I scoured Nom Purge! I brought the Seti into the fold!’
Genist's blood ran cold as he began to consider the possibility that this man could indeed be Toc himself, not some opportunist outlaw trying to exploit the name. Hood's breath! Toc the Elder, the greatest cavalry commander the Empire ever produced! Abyss, there was no Imperial cavalry before this man. Then the man's words brought a shiver to Genist; he recalled who it was that had negotiated the Seti tribal treaties and whom columns of thousands of Seti lancers had followed from these plains across Quon, even into Falar, and he turned, dreading what he might see, to the open fort gates. There, astride their mounts, five tribal elders watched, white furs at their shoulders, lances tufted by fetishes of white fur.
Gods Below! What may be unleashed here?
A call rose from the ranks, gathered cadence to a mounting chant. Toc the Elder! Toc the Elder!’ Blades hissed from sheaths and waved in salute to the sky. ‘Toc the Elder!’
Even Moss, standing beside Genist's mount, thumb brushing his lips, breathed musingly, ‘Toc the Elder …’