The distant Tithansi paid him no attention, and soon rode out of sight. Heart thumping, Duiker urged his horse into a canter.

A wind brushed his face. The historian hissed a blessing to whatever god was responsible. The hanging dust cloud ahead began to edge his way.

The sky darkened.

A voice shouted a few hundred paces to his left. A dozen horsemen, strips of fur trailing from their lances. Tithansi. Duiker saluted them with a raised fist.

‘With the dawn, old man!’ one of them bellowed. ‘It is suicide to attack now!’

‘Ride to Reloe’s camp!’ another yelled. ‘Northwest, old man – you are heading for the enemy lines!’

Duiker waved their words away, gesturing like a madman. He rose slightly in the saddle, whispered into the mare’s ear, squeezed gently with his knees. The animal’s head ducked forward, the strides lengthened.

Reaching the crest of a low hill, the historian finally saw what was arrayed before him. The encampment of the Tithansi lancers lay ahead and to his right, a thousand or more hide tents, the gleam of cooking fires. Mounted patrols moved in a restless line beyond the tents, protecting the camp from the enemy forces dug in at the ford. To the left of the Tithansi camp spread a score thousand makeshift tents – the peasant army. Smoke hung like an ash-stained cloak over the sprawling tattered shanty town. Meals were being cooked. Outlying pickets consisted of entrenchments, again facing the river. Between the two encampments there was a corridor, no more than two wagons wide, running down the sloping floodplain to meet Coltaine’s earthen defences.

Duiker angled his horse down the corridor, riding at full gallop. The Tithansi outriders behind him had not pursued, though the warriors patrolling the encampment now watched him, converging but without obvious concern ... yet.

As he cleared the inside edge of the tribe’s camp on his right, then the peasants’ sea of tents on his left, he saw raised earthworks, orderly rows of tents, solidly manned pickets – the horde had additional protection. The historian saw two banners, Sialk and Hissar – regular infantry. Helmed heads had turned, eyes drawn to the sound of his horse’s hooves and now the alarmed shouts of the Tithansi riders.

The mare was straining. Coltaine’s pickets were five hundred paces ahead, seeming to get no nearer. He heard horses in pursuit, gaining. Figures appeared on the Malazan bulwarks, readying bows. The historian prayed for quick-witted minds among the soldiers he rode towards. He cursed as he saw the bows raised, then drawn back.

‘Not me, you bastards!’ he bellowed in Malazan.

The bows loosed. Arrows sped unseen in the night.

Horses screamed behind him. His pursuers were drawing rein. More arrows flew. Duiker risked one backward glance and saw the Tithansi scrambling to withdraw out of arrow range. Thrashing horses and bodies lay on the ground.