They launched the last barge two days later. The initial quota of fifty had been increased to a hundred, far more than necessary to transport their entire force. It’s expecting reinforcements, Morradin explained. The marshal was still on the parade-ground whilst Sirus now stood on the wharf watching his Spoiled work-force secure tow-lines from the ships to the barges. He had come to understand that the power enabling them to share their thoughts was not limited by distance, but the connection was stronger with some than others. Katrya’s mind was like an open box, every emotion and memory there for the taking. By contrast, Majack remained a largely blank vessel filled with the White’s purpose, as did most of the Spoiled, especially the tribesfolk. The memories of the native Arradsians were a best-avoided mélange of unfamiliar custom, violence and hardship. Strangely, despite their mutual antipathy, his strongest bond besides Katrya was with Morradin. It was as if dislike, or more truthfully, hatred, could breed as much closeness as love.
The marshal’s memories were a curious mix, blazing bright when they touched on his many victories, brighter still at the unfolding spectacle of slaughter. However, they dimmed whenever they turned to the personal. An arranged marriage to a woman he barely knew, who soon grew to despise him. The children they produced, a son and daughter, growing into disappointing, rarely acknowledged shadows of his greatness. Morradin’s cruel indifference to his children caused Sirus to wonder if his resentment of his own father had been entirely justified. He had been harsh at times, certainly, but when contrasted with this war-loving monster it became apparent to Sirus that his father had merely been a widowed man trying, in his own faltering way, to raise a son as best he could.
A loud and familiar cry sounded over the docks as the White came soaring out of the sky. A gaggle of Reds followed in its wake, led by the huge drake with the scarred face. Sirus had taken to calling this one Katarias, the darkest of the elder Corvantine gods. Legend had it that Katarias had ruled the whole world with depraved malice for a hundred years before his fellow gods cast him into the fire beneath the earth. This Katarias possessed all the cruelty of his divine namesake, having killed at least a dozen Spoiled in as many days, picking out the weak or infirm with a predator’s expert eye. Whereas the shared connection permitted some sense of the White’s mind, Katarias and the other drakes under its sway remained closed to Sirus and the other Spoiled. But, although he couldn’t hear his thoughts, the enmity with which Katarias viewed the formerly human inhabitants of this city was plain in its every, baleful glare and the evident glee it exhibited whenever it feasted on a meal chosen from amongst their ranks.
The White settled on the part-ruined building atop the harbour wall where it made its nest. The clutch of infant Whites screeched out a greeting as it landed amongst them, crowding round to nuzzle its flanks, wings flapping in excited adoration. The White enclosed them all in its wings, issuing a low growl of paternal affection. After a moment it moved back, glancing up at Katarias circling above. The Red obediently folded its wings and descended to deposit something in the nest, something with two legs and two arms that managed to issue a plaintive, hopeless scream before the infant Whites tore it to pieces.
Another unfortunate from Carvenport, Sirus decided. Or some wayward Contractor found in the Interior. He wondered if there was any significance in the fact that the infant Whites only ever fed on human prey. He had seen the other drakes feed on livestock as well as humans, but not the White’s brood.
It’s training them, Morradin told him. Making it so that’s all they’ll ever want to eat. When we go forth from here, they’ll eat the whole world, boy.
? ? ?
Katrya came to him after dark, as had become her nightly ritual. Their couplings, performed in full view of the other Spoiled since privacy was a meaningless concept now, seemed an inevitable consequence of joining minds so deeply. As they coiled together he could feel those other Spoiled similarly occupied throughout the city, their lust mingling to make the experience ever more compulsive. He knew he should have been disgusted by this, repelled by the spines and scales that marked Katrya’s face and body, violated by the fact that every sensation was shared with so many others. But the intoxication of it was overwhelming, irresistible.
Did it made us like this for a reason? he pondered later as they lay entwined, finally spent, Katrya’s contented slumber a low hum in his mind. Something else to keep us bound to its will?
Katrya gave a faint moan of distress as his thoughts turned to Morradin’s words that day: They’ll eat the whole world. He had learned that sober reflection tended to mute the interest of the other Spoiled, the lack of emotion partially masking his thoughts. But draining his mind of feeling was never easy, especially when the marshal’s prediction led inevitably to thoughts of Tekela. He knew it was likely she had perished by now, if not during her flight from Morsvale then in Carvenport along with so many others. But a nagging sense of hope convinced him otherwise. She lived, somewhere beyond his sight, but not beyond the scope of the White’s ambition.
He drifted into his dreamless sleep picturing her face, as caustically indifferent as he remembered, but this time drenched in blood.
? ? ?
The reinforcements arrived the next afternoon, emerging from the jungle beyond the southern wall in their dozens, then hundreds, then thousands. More Spoiled-born summoned from the Interior. The disparate tribal origins were evident in the wide variety of clothing they wore. Some had feathers in their hair, whilst others had skin etched all over with decorative scars. They were all men and women of fighting age, Sirus finding not a single child or old one among their ranks. Touching their minds briefly brought an explanation: children trotting in the wake of silent and indifferent parents marching steadily north, cuffed or cut down when they became a hindrance. Soon all the children were left behind to fend for themselves. The White had no use for those too small to fight.
By nightfall the White’s horde had grown to ten thousand, rising to twenty come the following morning. Morradin absorbed them all into his army with typical efficiency and soon they were drilling with the same uniform precision as the others, though only about half possessed fire-arms. The fleet of ships and barges were loaded with provisions and ammunition, their cannon hauled aboard and every engine turned over in preparation for an imminent voyage. Sirus could feel the excited anticipation of the others, even sharing it to some extent though the prospect of what lay ahead stirred his dread in equal measure. He also sensed a change in Morradin’s mood, the self-recrimination lessening as the prospect of conflict loomed. For a man whose soul appeared to be stirred only by triumph in war, the coming tribulation was as irresistible as Sirus’s nightly surrenders to lust.
The White watched the preparations in silence until the last Spoiled had trooped aboard barge or ship, then raised its head and gave a vast cry. Its command spread through them all in an instant, the most powerful and implacable urge it had yet birthed in its horde of slaves: North.
CHAPTER 11
Lizanne
“What did that bitch Sefka tell you?” the Blood Imperial enquired, long-nailed fingers twitching on the curved head of his walking-stick. His entire bearing was that of an old man struggling to maintain posture despite a host of aches and pains. However, his eyes were bright and steady behind the veil of lank grey hair. “Said you should tell me to stuff it, didn’t she?”