their axles, which were then used to transport the planks of wood. Hide and canvas were stretched out, pegged down, the stakes driven flush with the ground itself. Wooden walkways were constructed, each leading back to a single, centrally positioned wagon-bed that had been left intact and raised on legs of bundled spear-shafts to create a platform.
The canvas and hides stretched in rows, with squares behind each row, linked by flattened wicker walls that had been used for hut-frames. But no-one would sleep under cover this night. No, all that took shape here served but one purpose – the coming battle. The final battle.
Redmask intended a defence. He invited Bivatt and her army to close with him, and to do so the Letherii and the Tiste Edur would need to march across open ground – Toc sat astride his horse, watching the frenzied preparations and occasionally glancing northwestward, to those closing stormclouds – open ground, then, that would be a sea of mud.
She might decide to wait. I would, if I were her. Wait until the rains had passed, until the ground hardened once again. But Toc suspected that she would not exercise such restraint. Redmask was trapped, true, but the Awl had their herds – thousands of beasts most of whom were now being slaughtered – so, Redmask could wait, his warriors well fed, whilst Bivatt and her army faced the threat of real starvation. She would need all that butchered meat, but to get to it she had to go through the Awl; she had to destroy her hated enemy.
Besides, she might be less dismayed than Redmask would think, come the day of battle. She has her mages, after all. Not as many as before, true, but still posing a significant threat – sufficient to win the day, in fact.
Redmask would have his warriors standing on those islands of dry ground. But such positions – with reserves on the squares behind them – offered no avenue of retreat. A final battle, then, the fates decided one way or the other. Was this what Redmask had planned? Hardly. Praedegar was a disaster.
Torrent rode up. No mask of paint again, a swath of red hives spanning his forehead. 'The sea will live once more,' he said.
'Hardly,' Toc replied.
'The Letherii will drown nonetheless.'
'Those tarps, Torrent, will not stay dry for long. And then there are the mages.'
'Redmask has his Guardians for those cowards.'
'Cowards?' Toc asked, amused. 'Because they wield sorcery instead of swords?'
'And hide behind rows of soldiers, yes. They care nothing for glory. For honour.'
'True: the only thing they care about is winning. Leaving them free to talk about honour and glory afterwards. The chief spoil of the victors, that privilege.'
'You speak like one of them, Mezla. That is why I do not trust you, and so I will remain at your side during the battle.'
'My heart goes out to you – I am tasked with guarding the children, after all. We'll be nowhere close to the fighting.' Until the fighting comes to us, which it will.
'I shall find my glory in slitting your miserable throat, Mezla, the moment you turn to run. I see the weakness in your soul; I have seen it all along. You are broken. You should have died with your soldiers.'
'Probably. At least then I'd be spared the judgements of someone with barely a whisker on his spotty chin. Have you even lain with a woman yet, Torrent?'
The young warrior glowered for a moment, then slowly nodded. 'It is said you are quick with your barbed arrows, Mezla.'
'A metaphor, Torrent? I'm surprised at this turn to the poetic.'
'You have not listened to our songs, have you? You have made yourself deaf to the beauty of the Awl, and in your deafness you have blinded that last eye left to you. We are an ancient people, Mezla.'
'Deaf, blind, too bad I'm not yet mute.'
'You will be when I slit your throat.'
Well, Toc conceded, he had a point there.
Redmask had waited for this a long time. And no old man of the Renfayar with his damned secrets would stand poised to shatter everything. No, with his own hands Redmask had taken care of that, and he could still see in his mind that elder's face, the bulging eyes, vessels bursting, the jutting tongue as the lined face turned blue, then a deathly shade of grey above his squeezing hands. That throat had been as nothing, thin as a reed, the cartilage crumpling like a papyrus scroll in