OF A RIVER
BADALLE
CONFESSIONS OF THE CONDEMNED
BANATHOS OF BLUEROSE
The errant walked the flooded tunnel, remembering the bodies that had once drifted there, shifting like logs, flesh turning to jelly. Now on occasion, in pushing a foot forward, he kicked aside unseen bones. Darkness promised no solitude, no true abandonment, no final resting place. Darkness was nothing more than a home for the forgotten. Which was why sarcophagi had lids and crypts were sealed under stone and barrows beneath heaped earth. Darkness was the vision behind shuttered eyes, little more than the dismissal of light when details ceased to be relevant.
He could find such a world. All he needed to do was close his one remaining eye. It should work. He did not understand why it didn’t. The water, bitter cold, lapped round his thighs. He welcomed its gift of numbness. The air was foul, but he was used to that. There should be nothing to hold him here, chaining him to this moment.
Events were unfolding, so many events, and not all of them shifting to his touch, twisting to his will. Anger was giving way to fear. He had sought out the altar Feather Witch had consecrated in his name. He had expected to find her soul, her fleshless will curling in sinew currents round the submerged rubble, but there had been nothing, no one. Where had she gone?
He could still feel her hair beneath his hand, the muted struggles as some remnant of her sanity groped for air, for one more moment of life. His palm tingled with the echo of her faint convulsions beginning in that moment when she surrendered and filled her lungs with water, once, twice, like a newborn trying out the gifts of an unknown world, only to retreat, fade away, and slide like an eel back into the darkness, where the first thing forgotten was oneself.
This should not be haunting him. His act had been one of mercy. Gangrenous, insane, she’d had little time left. It had been the gentlest of nudges, not at all motivated by vengeance or disgust. Still, she might well have cursed him in that last exhaled, soured breath.
Her soul should be swimming these black waters. But the Errant knew that he had been alone. The altar chamber had offered him little more than desolation.
Wading, the tunnel’s slimy floor descending with each step, his feet suddenly lost all grip and the water rose yet higher, past his chest, closing over his shoulders and lapping at his throat. The top of his head brushed the gritty stone of the tunnel’s ceiling, and then he was under, blinking the sting from his eye.
He pushed onward through the murk, until the water turned salty, and light, reflecting down from a vague surface fathoms overhead, flashed like dulled, smeared memories of lightning. He could feel the heavy tugs of wayward currents and he knew that a storm did indeed rage, there upon the ceiling of this world, but it could do little to him down here. Scraping through thick mud, he walked the ocean floor.
Nothing decayed in this place, and all that had not been crushed to dust by the immense pressures now lay scattered beneath monochrome draperies of silt, like furniture in a vast, abandoned room. Everything about this realm invited horror. Time lost its way here, wandering until the ceaseless rain of detritus weighed it down, brought it to its knees, and then buried it. Anything-anyone-could fall to the same fate. The danger, the risk, was very real. No creature of sentience could withstand this place for long. Futility delivered its crushing symphony and the dread music was eternal.
He found himself walking down the length of a vast skeleton, jagged uneven ribs rising like the columns of a colonnade to either side, a roofless temple sagging under its own senseless burden. He passed the snaking line of boulders that was the immense creature’s spine. Four scapulae formed broad concave platforms just ahead, from which bizarre long bones radiated out like toppled pillars. He could just make out, in the gloom, the massive crown of the back of the monster’s skull. Here, then, awaited another kind of temple. Precious store of self, a space insisting on its occupation, an existence that demanded acknowledgement of its own presence.
The Errant sympathized with the notion. Such delicate conceits assembled the bones of the soul, after all. He moved past the last of the scapulae, noting the effect of some crushing, no doubt crippling impact. The bone looked like a giant broken plate.
Coming alongside the skull, he saw that the cave of its nearest orbital socket was shattered, above and behind an elongated, partly collapsed snout crowded with serrated teeth. The Elder God paused and studied that damage for some time. He could not imagine what this beast had been; he suspected it was a child of these deep currents, a swimmer through ancient ages, entirely uncomprehending that its time was past. He wondered if mercy had delivered that death blow.
Ah, but he could not fight his own nature, could he? Most of his nudges were fatal ones, after all. The impetus might find many justifications, and clearly mercy numbered among them. This was, he told himself, a momentary obsession. The feel of her hair under his hand… a lapse of conscience, then, this tremor of remorse. It would pass.
He pushed on, knowing that at last, he’d found the right trail.
There were places that could only be found by invitation, by the fickle generosity of the forces that gave them shape, that made them what they were. Such barriers defied the hungers and needs of most seekers. But he had learned the secret paths long, long ago. He required no invitations, and no force could stand in the way of his hunger.
The dull gleam of the light in the tower reached him before he could make out anything else, and he flinched at seeing that single mocking eye floating in the gloom. Currents swept fiercely around him as he drew closer, buffeting his body as if desperate to turn him aside. Silts swirled up, seeking to blind him. But he fixed his gaze on that fitful glow, and before long he could make out the squat, blockish house, the black, gnarled branches of the trees in the yard, and then the low stone wall.
Dunes of silt were heaped up against the tower side of the Azath. The mounds in the yard were sculpted, half-devoured, exposing the roots of the leaning trees. As the Errant stepped on to the snaking flagstones of the path, he could see bones scattered out from those sundered barrows. Yes, they had escaped their prisons at long last, but death had arrived first.
Patience was the curse of longevity. It could lure its ageless victim into somnolence, until flesh itself rotted off, and the skull rolled free.
He reached the door. Pushed it open.
The currents within the narrow entranceway swept over him warm as tears. As the portal closed behind him, the Errant gestured. A moment later he was standing on dry stone. Hovering faint on the air around him was the smell of wood-smoke. A wavering globe of lantern light approached from the corridor beyond.
The threadbare figure that stepped into view sent a pang through the Errant. Memories murky as the sea-bottom spun up to momentarily blind him. The gaunt Forkrul Assail was hunched at the shoulders, as if every proof of justice had bowed him down, left him broken. His pallid face was a mass of wrinkles, like crushed leather. Tortured eyes fixed on the Errant for a moment, and then the Assail turned away. ‘Fire and wine await us, Errastas-come, you know the way.’
They walked through the double doors at the conjunction of the corridors, into the dry heat of the hearth room. The Assail gestured at a sideboard as he hobbled to one of the chairs flanking the fireplace. Ignoring the invitation to drink-for the moment-the Errant walked to the other chair and settled into it.
They sat facing one another.
‘You have suffered some,’ said the Assail, ‘since I last saw you, Errastas.’
‘Laughter from the Abyss, Setch, have you seen yourself lately?’
‘The forgotten must never complain.’ He’d found a crystal goblet and he now held it up and studied the flickering flames trapped in the amber wine. ‘When I look at myself, I see… embers. They dim, they die. It is,’ he added, ‘well.’ And he drank.
The Errant bared his teeth. ‘Pathetic. Your hiding is at an end, Knuckles.’
Sechul Lath smiled at the old title, but it was a bitter smile. ‘Our time is past.’
‘It was, yes. But now it shall be reborn.’
Sechul shook his head. ‘You were right to surrender the first time-’
‘That was no surrender! I was driven out!’
‘You were forced to relinquish all that you no longer deserved.’ The haunted eyes lifted to trap the Errant’s glare. ‘Why the resentment?’
‘We were allies!’
‘So we were.’
‘We shall be again, Knuckles. You were the Elder God who stood closest to my throne-’
‘Your Empty Throne, yes.’
‘A battle is coming-listen to me! We can cast aside all these pathetic new gods. We can drown them in blood!’ The Errant leaned forward. ‘Do you fear that it will be you and me alone against them? I assure you, old friend, we shall not be alone.’ He settled back once more, stared into the fire. ‘Your mortal kin have found new power, made new alliances.’
Knuckles snorted. ‘You would trust to the peace and justice of the Forkrul Assail? After all they once did to you?’
‘I trust the necessity they have recognized.’
‘Errastas, my time is at an end.’ He made a rippling gesture with his fingers. ‘I leave it to the Twins.’ He smiled. ‘They were my finest cast.’
‘I refuse to accept that. You will not stand aside in what is to come. I have forgotten nothing. Remember the power we once wielded?’
‘I remember-why do you think I’m here?’
‘I want that power again. I will have it.’
‘Why?’ Knuckles asked softly. ‘What is it you seek?’
‘Everything that I have lost!’
‘Ah, old friend, then you do not remember everything.’
‘No?’
‘No. You have forgotten why you lost it in the first place.’
A long moment of silence.
The Errant rose and went over to pour himself a goblet of wine. He returned and stood looking down upon his fellow Elder God. ‘I am not here,’ he said, ‘for you alone.’
Knuckles winced.
‘I intend, as well, to summon the Clan of Elders-all who have survived. I am Master of the Tiles. They cannot deny me.’
‘No,’ Knuckles muttered, ‘that we cannot do.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Sleeping.’
The Errant grimaced. ‘I already knew that, Setch.’
‘Sit down, Errastas. For now, please. Let us just… sit here. Let us drink in remembrance of friendship. And innocence.’
‘When our goblets are empty, Knuckles.’
He closed his eyes and nodded. ‘So be it.’
‘It pains me to see you so,’ the Errant said as he sat back down. ‘We shall return you to what you once were.’
‘Dear Errastas, have you not learned? Time cares nothing for our wants, and no god that has ever existed can be as cruel as time.’
The Errant half-closed his remaining eye. ‘Wait until you see the world I shall make, Setch. Once more, you shall stand beside the Empty Throne. Once more, you shall know the pleasure of mischance, striking down hopeful mortals one by one.’
‘I do remember,’ Knuckles murmured, ‘how they railed at misfortune.’
‘And sought to appease ill fate with ever more blood. Upon the altars. Upon the fields of battle.’
‘And in the dark bargains of the soul.’
The Errant nodded. Pleased. Relieved. Yes, he could wait for this time, this brief healing span. It served and served well.
He could grant her a few more moments of rest.
‘So tell me,’ ventured Knuckles, ‘the tale.’
‘What tale?’
‘The one that took your eye.’
The Errant scowled and looked away, his good mood evaporating. ‘Mortals,’ he said, ‘will eat anything.’
In the tower of the Azath, within a chamber that was an entire realm, she slept and she dreamed. And since dreams existed outside of time, she was walking anew a landscape that had been dead for millennia. But the air was sharp still, the sky overhead as pure in its quicksilver brilliance as the day of its violent birth. On all sides buildings, reduced to rubble, formed steep-sided, jagged mounds. Passing floods had caked mud on everything to a height level with her hips. She walked, curious, half-disbelieving.
Was this all that remained? It was hard to believe.
The mounds looked strangely orderly, the chunks of stone almost uniform in size. No detritus had drifted down into the streets or lanes. Even the flood silts had settled smooth on every surface.
‘Nostalgia,’ a voice called down.
She halted, looked up to see a white-skinned figure perched atop one of the mounds. Gold hair hanging long, loose, hinting of deep shades of crimson. A white-bladed two-handed sword leaned against one side of his chest, the multifaceted crystal pommel flashing in the brightness. He took many forms, this creature. Some pleasant, others-like this one-like a spit of acid in her eyes.
‘This is your work, isn’t it?’
One of his hands stroked the sword’s enamel blade, the sensuality of the gesture making her shiver. He said, ‘I deplore your messiness, Kilmandaros.’
‘While you make death seem so… tidy.’
He shrugged. ‘Tell me, if on your very last day-day or night, it makes no difference-you find yourself in a room, on a bed, even. Too weak to move, but able to look around-that’s all. Tell me, Kilmandaros, will you not be comforted by the orderliness of all that you see? By the knowledge that it will persist beyond you, unchanged, bound to its own slow, so slow measure of decay?’
‘You ask if I will be what, Osserc? Nostalgic about a room I’m still in?’
‘Is that not the final gift of dying?’
She held up her hands and showed him her fists. ‘Come down here and receive just such a gift, Osserc. I know this body-this face that you show me now. I know the seducer and know him too well. Come down-do you not miss my embrace?’
And in the dread truths of dreams, Osserc then chuckled. The kind of laugh that cut into its victim, that shocked tight the throat. Dismissive, devoid of empathy. A laugh that said: You no longer matter to me. I see your hurt and it amuses me. I see how you cannot let go of the very thing I have so easily flung away: the conceit that we still matter to each other.
So much, yes, in a dream’s laugh.
‘Emurlahn is in pieces,’ he said. ‘And most of them are now as dead as this one. Would you blame me? Anomander? Scabandari?’
‘I’m not interested in your stupid finger-pointing. The one who accuses has nothing to lose and everything to hide.’
‘Yet you joined with Anomander-’
‘He too was not interested in blame. We joined together, yes, to save what we could.’
‘Too bad, then,’ Osserc said, ‘that I got here first.’
‘Where have the people gone, Osserc? Now that you’ve destroyed their city.’
His brows lifted. ‘Why, nowhere.’ He gestured, a broad sweep of one hand, encompassing the rows of mounds around them. ‘I denied them their moment of… nostalgia.’
She found herself trembling. ‘Come down here,’ she said in a rasp, ‘your death is long overdue.’
‘Others concur,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, it’s why I’m, uh, lingering here. Only one portal survives. No, not the one you came through-that one has since crumbled.’
‘And who waits for you there, Osserc?’
‘Edgewalker.’
Kilmandaros bared her massive fangs in a broad smile. And then threw a laugh back at him. She moved on.
His voice sounded surprised as he called out behind her. ‘What are you doing? He is angry. Do you not understand? He is angry!’
‘And this is my dream,’ she whispered. ‘Where all that has been is yet to be.’ And still, she wondered. She had no recollection, after all, of this particular place. Nor of meeting Osserc among the shattered remnants of Kurald Emurlahn.
Sometimes it is true, she told herself, that dreams prove troubling.
‘Clouds on the horizon. Black, advancing in broken lines.’ Stormy knuckled his eyes and then glared across at Gesler from a momentarily reddened face. ‘What kind of stupid dream is that?’
‘How should I know? There are cheats who make fortunes interpreting the dreams of fools. Why not try one of those?’
‘You calling me a fool?’
‘Only if you follow my advice, Stormy.’
‘Anyway, that’s why I howled.’
Gesler leaned forward, clearing tankards and whatnot to make room for his thick, scarred forearms. ‘Falling asleep in the middle of a drinking session is unforgivable enough. Waking up screaming, why, that’s just obnoxious. Had half the idiots in here clutching at their chests.’
‘We shouldn’t’ve skipped out on the war-game, Ges.’
‘Not again. It wasn’t like that. We volunteered to go and find Hellian.’ He nodded to the third occupant of the table, although only the top of her head was visible, the hair sodden along one side where it had soaked up spilled ale. Her snores droned through the wood of the table like a hundred pine beetles devouring a sick tree. ‘And look, we found her, only she was in no shape to lead her squad. In fact, she’s in no shape for anything. She could get mugged, raped, even murdered. We needed to stand guard.’
Stormy belched and scratched at his beard. ‘It wasn’t a fun dream, that’s all.’
‘When was the last fun dream you remember having?’
‘Don’t know. Been some time, I think. But maybe we just forget those ones. Maybe we only remember the bad ones.’
Gesler refilled their tankards. ‘So there’s a storm coming. Impressive subtlety, your dreams. Prophetic, even. You sleep to the whispers of the gods, Stormy.’
‘Now ain’t you in a good mood, Ges. Remind me not to talk about my dreams no more.’
‘I didn’t want you talking about them this time round. It was the scream.’
‘Not a scream, like I told you. It was a howl.’
‘What’s the difference?’
Scowling, Stormy reached for his tankard. ‘Only, sometimes, maybe, gods don’t whisper.’
‘Furry women still haunting your dreams?’
Bottle opened his eyes and contemplated throwing a knife into her face. Instead, he slowly winked. ‘Good afternoon, Captain. I’m surprised you’re not-’
‘Excuse me, soldier, but did you just wink at me?’
He sat up on his cot. ‘Was that a wink, Captain? Are you sure?’
Faradan Sort turned away, muttering under her breath as she marched towards the barracks door.
Once the door shut behind her, Bottle sat back, frowning. Now, messing with an officer’s head was just, well, second nature. No, what disturbed him was the fact that he was suddenly unsure if she’d spoken at all. As a question, it didn’t seem a likely fit, not coming from Faradan Sort. In fact, he doubted she even knew anything about his particular curse-how could she? There wasn’t a fool alive who confided in an officer. Especially ones who viciously killed talented, happily married scorpions for no good reason. And if she did indeed know something, then it meant someone had traded that bit of information in exchange for something else. A favour, a deal, which was nothing less than a behind-the-back betrayal of every common soldier in the legion.
Who was vile enough to do that?
He opened his eyes and looked around. He was alone in the barracks. Fiddler had taken the squad out for that field exercise, the war-game against Brys Beddict’s newly assembled battalions. Complaining of a bad stomach, Bottle had whined and groaned his way out of it. Not for him some useless trudging through bush and farmland; besides, it hadn’t been so long ago that they were killing Letherii for real. There was a good chance someone-on either side-would forget that everyone was friends now. The point was, he’d been the first one quick enough with the bad-stomach complaint, so no one else could take it up-he’d caught the vicious glare from Smiles, which of course he’d long got used to since he was always faster off the mark than she was.
Smiles. Bottle fixed his gaze on her cot, studied it through a suspicious squint. Behind-the-back shit was her forte, wasn’t it? Aye, and who else had it in for him?
He swung his feet to the floor and-gods, that stone was cold!-padded over to her berth.
It paid to approach these things cautiously. If anyone was in the habit of rigging booby traps to just about everything they didn’t want anyone else to touch, it was that spitting half-mad kitten with the sharp eye-stickers. Bottle drew his eating knife and began probing under the thin mattress, leaning close to peer at seams and seemingly random projections of tick straw-any one of which could be coated in poison-projections which, he discovered, turned out to be, uh, random projections of tick straw. Trying to lull me into something… I can smell it.
He knelt and peeked under the frame. Nothing obvious, and that made him even more suspicious. Muttering, Bottle crawled round to kneel in front of her lockbox. Letherii issue-not something they’d be taking with them. She’d not have had much time to rig it, not deviously, anyway. No, the needles and blades would be poorly hidden.
She’d sold him out, but she would learn to regret doing that.
Finding nothing on the outside of the trunk, he slipped his knife point into the lock and began working the mechanism.
Discovering that the lockbox wasn’t even locked froze him into a long moment of terror, breath held, sudden sweat beading his forehead. A snare for sure. A killer snare. Smiles doesn’t invite people in, oh no, not her. If I just lift this lid, I’m a dead man.
He whirled upon hearing the scrape of boots, and found himself looking up at Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas. ‘Hood’s breath, soldier, stop sneaking up on me like that!’
‘What’re you doing?’ Corabb asked.
‘Me? What’re you doing? Don’t tell me the scrap’s already over-’
‘No. I lost my new sword. Sergeant got mad and sent me home.’
‘Bad luck, Corabb. No glory for you.’
‘Wasn’t looking for any-wasn’t real fighting, Bottle. I don’t see the point in that. They’d only learn anything if we could use our weapons and kill a few hundred of them.’
‘Right. That makes sense. Bring it up with Fiddler-’
‘I did. Just before he sent me back.’
‘He’s getting more unreasonable by the day.’
‘Funny,’ Corabb said, ‘that’s exactly what I said to him. Anyway, what’re you doing? This isn’t your bunk.’
‘You’re a sharp one all right, Corabb. See, it’s like this. Smiles is trying to murder me.’
‘Is she? Why?’
‘Women like her don’t need reasons, Corabb. She’s set booby traps. Poison, is my guess. Because I was staying behind, you see? She’s set a trap to kill me.’
‘Oh,’ said Corabb. ‘That’s clever.’
‘Not clever enough, friend. Because now you’re here.’
‘I am, yes.’
Bottle edged back from the lockbox. ‘It’s unlocked,’ he said, ‘so I want you to lift the lid.’
Corabb stepped past and flung the lid back.
After he’d recovered from his flinch, Bottle crawled up for a look inside.
‘Now what?’ Corabb asked behind him. ‘Was that practice?’
‘Practice?’
‘Aye.’
‘No, Corabb-gods, this is strange-look at this gear! Those clothes.’
‘Well, what I meant was, do you want me to open Smiles’s box next?’
‘What?’
‘That’s Cuttle’s. You’re at Cuttle’s bunk, Bottle.’ He pointed. ‘Hers is right there.’
‘Well,’ Bottle muttered as he stood up and dropped the lid on the lockbox. ‘That explains the codpiece.’
‘Oh… does it?’
They stared at each other.
‘So, just how many bastards do you think you’ve sired by now?’
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘You just say something, Corabb?’
‘What?’
‘Before that.’
‘Before what?’
‘Something about bastards.’
‘Are you calling me a bastard?’ Corabb demanded, his face darkening.
‘No, of course not. How would I know?’
‘How-’
‘It’s none of my business, right?’ Bottle slapped the man on one solid shoulder and set off to find his boots. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Thought you were sick.’
‘Better now.’
Once he’d made his escape-in all likelihood narrowly avoiding being beaten to death by the squad’s biggest fist over some pathetic misunderstanding-Bottle glared up at the mid-afternoon sun for a moment, and then set off. All right, you parasite, I’m paying attention now. Where to?
‘It’s about time. I was having doubts-’
Quick Ben! Since when were you playing around with Mockra? And do you have any idea how our skulls will ache by this evening?
‘Relax, I got something for that. Bottle, I need you to go to the Old Palace. I’m down in the crypts.’
Where you belong.
‘First time anybody’s expressed that particular sentiment, Bottle. Tell me when you get to the grounds.’
What are you doing in the crypts, Quick Ben?
‘I’m at the Cedance. You need to see this, Bottle.’
Did you find them, then?
‘Who?’
Sinn and Grub. Heard they went missing.
‘No, they’re not here, and no sign that anyone’s been down here in some time. As I’ve already told the Adjunct, the two imps are gone.’
Gone? Gone where?
‘No idea. But they’re gone.’
Bad news for the Adjunct-she’s losing her mages-
‘She’s got me. She doesn’t need anyone else.’
And all my fears are laid to rest.
‘You may not have realized, Bottle, but I was asking you about your furry lover for a reason.’
Jealousy?
‘Hurry up and get here so I can throttle you. No, not jealousy. Although, come to think on it, I can’t even recall the last time-’
You said you had a reason, Quick Ben. Let’s hear it.
‘What’s Deadsmell been telling you?’
What? Nothing. Well.
‘Hah, I knew it! Don’t believe him, Bottle. He hasn’t any idea-any idea at all-about what’s in the works.’
You know, Quick Ben, oh… never mind. So, I’m on the grounds. Where to now?
‘Anybody see you?’
You didn’t tell me to do this sneakily!
‘Anybody in sight?’
Bottle looked round. Wings of the Old Palace were settled deep in mud, plaster cracking or simply gone, to reveal fissured, slumping brick walls. Snarls of grasses swallowed up old flagstone pathways. A plaza of some sort off to his left was now a shallow pond. The air was filled with spinning insects. No.
‘Good. Now, follow my instructions precisely, Bottle.’
You sure? I mean, I was planning on ignoring every third direction you gave me.
‘Fiddler needs to have a few words with you, soldier. About rules of conduct when it comes to High Mages.’
Look, Quick Ben, if you want me to find this Cedance, leave me to it. I have a nose for those kinds of things.
‘I knew it!’
You knew what? I’m just saying-
‘She’s been whispering in your ear-’
Gods below, Quick Ben! The noises she makes aren’t whispers. They’re not even words. I don’t-
‘She gives you visions, doesn’t she? Flashes of her own memories. Scenes.’
How do you know that?
‘Tell me some.’
Why do you think it’s any of your business?
‘Choose one, damn you.’
He slapped at a mosquito. Some would be easier than others, he knew. Easier because they were empty of meaning. Most memories were, he suspected. Frozen scenes. Jungle trails, the bark of four-legged monkeys from cliff-sides. Huddled warmth in the night as hunting beasts coughed in the darkness. But there was one that returned again and again, in innumerable variations.
The sudden blossoming of blue sky, an opening ahead, the smell of salt. Soft rush of gentle waves on white coral beach. Padding breathless on to the strand in a chorus of excited cries and chatter. Culmination of terrifying journeys overland where it seemed home would never again find them. And then, in sudden gift… Shorelines, Quick. Bright sun, hot sand underfoot. Coming home… even when the home has never been visited before. And, all at once, they gather to begin building boats.
‘Boats?’
Always boats. Islands. Places where the tawny hunters do not stalk the night. Places, where they can be… safe.
‘The Eres-’
Lived for the seas. The oceans. Coming from the great continents, they existed in a state of flight. Shorelines fed them. The vast emptiness beyond the reefs called to them.
‘Boats? What kind of boats?’
It varies-I don’t always travel with the same group. Dug-outs. Reed boats and bamboo rafts. Skins, baskets bridged by saplings-like nests in toppled trees. Quick Ben, the Eres’al-they were smart, smarter than you might think. They weren’t as different from us as they might seem. They conquered the entire world.
‘So what happened to them?’
Bottle shrugged. I don’t know. I think, maybe, we happened to them.
He had found a sundered doorway. Walking the length of dark, damp corridors and following the narrow staircases spiralling downward to landings ankle-deep in water. Sloshing this way and that, drawing unerringly closer to that pulsing residue of ancient power. Houses, Tiles, Holds, Wandering-that all sounds simple enough, doesn’t it, Quick Ben? Logical. But what about the roads of the sea? Where do they fit in? Or the siren calls of the wind? The point is, we see ourselves as the great trekkers, the bold travellers and explorers. But the Eres’al, High Mage, they did it first. There isn’t a place we step anywhere in this world that they haven’t stepped first. Humbling thought, isn’t it? He reached a narrow tunnel with an uneven floor that formed islands between pools. A massive portal with a leaning lintel stone beckoned. He stepped through and saw the causeway, and the broader platform at the end, where stood Quick Ben.
‘All right, I’m here, Quick Ben. With soaked feet.’
The vast chamber was bathed in golden light that rose like mist from the Tiles spreading out from the disc. Quick Ben, head tilted to one side, watched Bottle approach up the causeway, an odd look in his eyes.
‘What?’
He blinked, and then gestured. ‘Look around, Bottle. The Cedance is alive.’
‘Signifying what?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me. The magic here should be waning. We’ve unleashed the warrens, after all. We’ve brought the Deck of Dragons. We’ve slammed the door on Chaos. It’s like bringing the wheel to a tribe that has only used sleds and travois-there’s been a revolution among this kingdom’s mages. Even the priests are finding everything upside down-it’d be nice to sneak a spy into the cult of the Errant. Anyway, this place should be dying, Bottle.’
Bottle looked round. One Tile close by displayed a scatter of bones carved like impressions into the stone surface, impressions that glowed as if filled with embers. Nearby was another showing an empty throne. But the brightest Tile of all lifted its own image above the flat surface, so that it floated, swirling, in three dimensions. A dragon, wings spread wide, jaws open. ‘Hood’s breath,’ he muttered, repressing a shiver.
‘Your roads of the sea, Bottle,’ said Quick Ben. ‘They make me think about Mael.’
‘Well, hard not to think about Mael in this city, High Mage.’
‘You know, then.’
Bottle nodded.
‘That’s not nearly as worrisome as what was happening back in the Malazan Empire. The ascension of Mallick Rel, the Jhistal.’
Bottle frowned at Quick Ben. ‘How can that be more worrying than finding an Elder God standing next to the Letherii throne?’
‘It’s not the throne he’s standing beside. It’s Tehol. From what I gather, that relationship has been there for some time. Mael’s hiding here, trying to keep his head down. But he hasn’t much say when some mortal manages to grasp some of his power, and starts forcing concessions.’
‘The Elder God of the Seas,’ said Bottle, ‘was ever a thirsty god. And his daughter isn’t much better.’
‘Beru?’
‘Who else? The Lady of Fair Seas is an ironic title. It pays,’ he added, eyeing the dragon Tile, ‘not to take things so literally.’
‘I’m thinking,’ said Quick Ben, ‘of asking the Adjunct to elevate you to High Mage.’
‘Don’t do that,’ snapped Bottle. ‘Give me a reason not to. And not one of those pathetic ones about comradeship and how you’re so needed in Fid’s squad.’
‘All right. See what you think of this one, then. Keep me where I am… as your shaved knuckle in the hole.’
The High Mage’s glittering eyes narrowed, and then he smiled. ‘I may not like you much, Bottle, but sometimes… I like what you say.’
‘Lucky you. Now, can we get out of this place?’
‘I think it is time,’ she said, ‘for us to leave.’
Withal squinted at her, and then rubbed at the bristle on his chin. ‘You want better accommodation, love?’
‘No, you idiot. I mean leave. The Bonehunters, this city, all of it. You did what you had to do. I did what I had to do-my miserable family of Rake’s runts are gone, now. Nothing holds us here any more. Besides,’ she added, ‘I don’t like where things are going.’
‘That reading-’
‘Meaningless.’ She fixed a level gaze on him. ‘Do I look like the Queen of High House Dark?’
Withal hesitated.
‘Do you value your life, husband?’
‘If you want us to leave, why, I don’t expect anyone will try to stop us. We can book passage… somewhere.’ And then he frowned. ‘Hold on, Sand. Where will we go?’
Scowling, she rose and began pacing round their small, sparsely furnished room. ‘Remember the Shake? On that prison island?’
‘Aye. The ones that used old Andii words for some things.’
‘Who worship the shore, yes.’
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Who also seemed to think that the shore was dying.’
‘Maybe the one they knew-I mean, there’s always some kind of shore.’
‘Rising sea levels.’
‘Aye.’
‘Those sea levels,’ she continued, now facing the window and looking out over the city, ‘have been kept unnaturally low… for a long time.’
‘They have?’
‘Omtose Phellack. The rituals of ice. The Jaghut and their war with the T’lan Imass. The vast ice fields are melting, Withal.’ She faced him. ‘You’re Meckros-you’ve seen for yourself the storms-we saw it again at Fent Reach-the oceans are in chaos. Seasons are awry. Floods, droughts, infestations. And where does the Adjunct want to take her army? East. To Kolanse. But it’s a common opinion here in Lether that Kolanse is suffering a terrible drought.’ Her dark eyes hardened. ‘Have you ever seen an entire people starving, dying of thirst?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘I am old, husband. I remember the Saelen Gara, an offshoot Andii people in my home world. They lived in the forests. Until the forests died. We begged them, then, to come to Kharkanas. To the cities of the realm. They refused. Their hearts were broken, they said. Their world had died, and so they elected to die with it. Andarist begged…’ Her gaze clouded then and she turned away, back to the window. ‘Yes, Withal, to answer you. Yes, I have. And I will not see it again.’
‘Very well. Where to, then?’
‘We will begin,’ she said, ‘with a visit to the Shake.’
‘What have they to tell you, Sand? Garbled memories. Ignorant superstitions.’
‘Withal. I fell in battle. We warred with the K’Chain Che’Malle. Until the Tiste Edur betrayed us, slaughtered us. Clearly, they were not as thorough as they perhaps should have been. Some Andii survived. And it seems that there were more than just K’Chain Che’Malle dwelling in that region. There were humans.’
‘The Shake.’
‘People who would become the Shake, once they took in the surviving Andii. Once the myths and legends of both groups knitted together and became indistinguishable.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But even then, there must have been a schism of some sort. Unless, of course, the Tiste Andii of Bluerose were an earlier population, a migration distinct from our own. But my thinking is this: some of the Shake, with Tiste Andii among them, split away, travelled inland. They were the ones who created Bluerose, a theocracy centred on the worship of the Black-Winged Lord. On Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness.’
‘Is it not equally possible,’ ventured Withal, ‘that all the Tiste Andii left? Leaving just the Shake, weakly blood-mixed here and there, perhaps, but otherwise just human, yet now possessing that knitted skein of myths and such?’
She glanced at him, frowned. ‘That’s a thought, husband. The Tiste Andii survivors used the humans, to begin with, to regain their strength-to stay alive on this unknown world-even to hide them from Edur hunting parties. And then, when at last they judged they were ready, and it was safe, they all left.’
‘But wouldn’t the Shake have then rejected them? Their stories? Their words? After all, they certainly didn’t worship the Tiste Andii, did they? They worshipped the shore-and you have to admit, that’s one strange religion they have. Praying to a strip of beach and whatnot.’
‘And that is what interests me more than those surviving Tiste Andii. And that is why I wish to speak with their elders, their witches and warlocks.’
‘Deadsmell described the horrid skeletons his squad and Sinn found on the north end of the island. Half reptilian, half human. Misbegotten-’
‘That were quickly killed, disposed of. The taint, Withal, of K’Chain Che’Malle. And so, before we Tiste even arrived, they lived in the shadow of the Che’Malle. And it was not in isolation. No, there was some form of contact, some kind of relationship. There must have been.’
He thought about that, still uncertain as to where her thoughts were taking her. Why it had become so important that she uncover the secrets of the Shake. ‘Sandalath, why did you Tiste war against the K’Chain Che’Malle?’
She looked startled. ‘Why? Because they were different.’
‘I see. And they fought against you in turn. Because you were different, or because you were invading their world?’
She reached up and closed the shutters, blocking out the cityscape and sky beyond. The sudden gloom was like a shroud on their conversation. ‘I’m going out now,’ she said. ‘Start packing.’
With delicate precision, Telorast nipped at the eyelid, clasping it and lifting it away from the eye. Curdle leaned in for a closer look, then pulled back, hind claws scrabbling to maintain their grip on the front of Banaschar’s tunic.
‘He’s piss drunk, all right. Snuffed candle. Doused fire, gutted lamp, the reeking dead.’
Telorast released the lid, watched it sink back down. Banaschar sighed wetly, groaned and shifted in the chair, head lolling.
The two skeletal creatures scrambled down and rendezvoused on the window sill on the other side of the small room. They tilted their heads closer together.
‘What now?’ Curdle whispered.
‘What kind of question is that? What now? What now? Have you lost your mind?’
‘Well, what now, Telorast?’
‘How should I know! But listen, we need to do something! That Errant-he’s… he’s-well, I hate him, is what! And worse, he’s using Banaschar, our very own ex-priest.’
‘Our pet.’
‘That’s right. Our pet-not his!’
‘We should kill him.’
‘Who? Banaschar or the Errant?’
‘If we kill Banaschar, then nobody has a pet. If we kill the Errant, then we can keep Banaschar all to ourselves.’
‘Right, Curdle,’ Telorast said, nodding, ‘but which one would make the Errant angrier?’
‘Good question. We need something to make him go mad, completely mad-that’s the best revenge for stealing our pet.’
‘And then we kill him.’
‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter! Why are you being so thick? Oh, what a ridiculous question! Listen, Curdle, now we got ourselves a plan and that’s good. It’s a start. So let’s think some more. Vengeance against the Errant.’
‘The Elder God.’
‘Right.’
‘Who’s still around.’
‘Right.’
‘Stealing pets.’
‘Curdle-’
‘I’m just thinking out loud, that’s all!’
‘You call that thinking? No wonder we ended up torn to pieces and dead and worse than dead!’
‘Oh, and what are you thinking, then?’
‘I didn’t have any time to, since I had to answer all your questions!’
‘You always got an excuse, Telorast, did you know that? Always.’
‘And you’re it, Curdle, did you know that?’
A voice croaked from the other side of the room, ‘What are you two whispering about over there?’
The two skeletons flinched. Then, tail lashing about, Telorast ducked a head in Banaschar’s direction. ‘Absolutely nothing, and that’s a fact. In fact, beloved pet, that’s the problem! Every time! It’s Curdle. She’s an idiot! She drives me mad! Drives you to drink, too, I bet.’
‘The Errant’s game is one of fate,’ Banaschar said, rubbing at his face. ‘He uses-abuses-proclivities, tendencies. He nudges, pushes over the edge.’ He blinked blearily at the two skeletons. ‘To take him down, you need to take advantage of that selfsame obsession. You need to set a trap.’
Telorast and Curdle hopped down from the sill and advanced on the seated man, tails flicking, heads low. ‘A trap,’ whispered Telorast. ‘That’s good. We thought you’d switched gods, that’s what we thought-’
‘Don’t tell him what we thought!’ Curdle hissed.
‘It doesn’t matter now-he’s on our side! Weren’t you listening?’
‘The Errant wants all he once had,’ said Banaschar. ‘Temples, worshippers, domination. Power. To do that, he needs to take down the gods. The High Houses… all in ruins. Smouldering heaps. This coming war with the Crippled God presents him with his chance-a few nudges on the battlefield-who’d notice? He wants spilled blood, my friends, that’s what he wants.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ asked Curdle.
The two creatures had reached Banaschar’s scuffed boots and were now bobbing and fawning. ‘The chaos of battle,’ murmured Telorast, ‘yes, that would be ideal.’
‘For us,’ nodded Curdle.
‘Precisely. Our chance.’
‘To do what?’ Banaschar asked. ‘Find yourselves a couple of thrones?’ He snorted. Ignoring them as they prostrated themselves at his feet, he held up his hands and stared at them. ‘See this tremble, friends? What does it truly signify? I will tell you. I am the last living priest of D’rek. Why was I spared? I lost all the privileges of worship within a temple. I lost a secular game of influence and power, diminished in the eyes of my brothers and sisters. In the eyes of everyone, I imagine. But I never gave up worshipping my god.’ He squinted. ‘I should be dead. Was I simply forgotten? Has it taken longer than D’rek thought? To hunt us all down? When will my god find me?’ After a moment longer he lowered his hands on to his thighs. ‘I just… wait.’
‘Our pet’s disenchanted,’ whispered Telorast.
‘That’s bad,’ Curdle whispered back.
‘We need to find him a woman.’
‘Or a child to eat.’
‘They don’t eat children, Curdle.’
‘Well, some other kind of treat, then.’
‘A bottle!’
‘A bottle, yes, that’s good!’
They went hunting.
Banaschar waited.
Koryk trained his crossbow on the back of the scout’s helmed head. His finger edged down to the iron press.
The point of a knife hovered into view opposite his right eye. ‘I got orders,’ whispered Smiles, ‘to kill you if you kill anyone.’
He drew his finger back. ‘Like Hood you have. Besides, it might be an accident.’
‘Oh, I saw that for sure, Koryk. Your trigger finger just accidentally slipping down like that. And then, oh, in went my knife point-another accident. Tragedies! We’ll burn you on a pyre Seti style and that’s a promise.’
He lowered the crossbow and rolled on to his side, out of sight of the clumsy scout on the track below. ‘Right, that makes perfect sense, Smiles. A pyre for the people who live on the grasslands. We like our funerals to involve, why, everyone. We burn down whole villages and scorch the ground for leagues in every direction.’
She blinked at him, and then shrugged. ‘Whatever you do with your dead, then.’
He worked his way down the slope, Smiles following.
‘My turn,’ she said when they reached the draw. ‘Get back up there.’
‘You waited till we got down here to say that?’
She grinned.
Leaving him to scrabble back into position, Smiles set off through the brush. It wasn’t that the Letherii scouts were especially bad. It was more the case that their tradition of warfare kept them trapped in the idea of huge armies clashing on open fields. Where scouts were employed simply to find the enemy encampments. The notion of a foe that could melt into the landscape the way the Malazans could, or even the idea that the enemy might split its forces, avoid direct clashes, and whittle the Letherii down with raids, ambushes and disrupted supply lines-none of that was part of their military thinking.
The Tiste Edur had been tougher by far. Their fighting style was much closer to the Malazan one, which probably explained why the Edur conquered the Letherii the first time round.
Of course, the Malazans could stand firm in a big scrap, but it made sense to have spent some time demoralizing and weakening their foe beforehand.
These Letherii had a lot still to learn. After all, one day the Malazans might be back. Not the Bonehunters, but the imperial armies of the Empress. A new kingdom to conquer, a new continent to subjugate. If King Tehol wanted to hold on to what he had, his brother had better be commanding a savvy, nasty army that knew how to face down Malazan marines, heavies, squad mages, sappers with munitions, and decent cavalry.
She quietly grunted as she approached the hidden camp. Poor Brys Beddict. They might as well surrender now.
‘If you was any less ugly,’ a voice said, ‘I’d a killed you for sure.’
She halted, scowling. ‘Took your time announcing yourself, picket.’
The soldier that edged into view was dark-skinned, barring a piebald blotch of pink disfiguring half his face and most of his forehead. The heavy crossbow in his hands was cocked but no quarrel rested in the slot.
Smiles pushed past him. ‘Talk about ugly-you live in my nightmares, Gullstream, you know that?’
The man stepped in behind her. ‘Can’t help being so popular with the ladies,’ he said. ‘Especially the Letherii ones.’
Despite the blotch, there was indeed something about Gullstream that made women take a second and third look. She suspected he might have some Tiste Andii blood in his veins. The almond-shaped eyes that never seemed to settle on any one colour; his way of moving-as if he had all the time in the world-and the fact that he was, according to rumour, well-hung. Shaking her head to clear away stupid thoughts, she said, ‘Their scouts have gone right past-staying on the track mostly. So the Fist can move us all up. We’ll fall on the main column screaming our lungs out and that will be that.’
As she was saying this, they entered the camp-a few hundred soldiers sitting or lying quietly amidst the trees, stumps and brush.
Seeing Keneb, Smiles headed over to make her report.
The Fist was sitting on a folding camp stool, using the point of his dagger to scrape mud from the soles of his boots. A cup of steaming herbal tea rested on a stump beside him. Sprawled on the ground a few paces away was Sergeant Fiddler, and just beyond him Sergeant Balm sat crosslegged, studying the short sword he was holding, his expression confused. A dozen heavies waited nearby, grouped together and seeming to be engaged in comparing their outthrust hands-counting knuckle hairs, I bet.
‘Fist, Scout Smiles reporting, sir.’
Keneb glanced up. ‘As predicted?’
‘Aye, sir. Can we go kill ’em all now?’
The Fist looked over at Fiddler, ‘Looks like you lost your bet, Sergeant.’
Eyes still closed, Fiddler grunted, then said, ‘We ain’t done any killing yet, sir. Brys Beddict’s been fishin in our brains for some time now, he’s bound to have snagged a fin or gill or two. Smiles, how many scouts on the track?’
‘Just the one, Sergeant. Picking his nose.’
Fiddler opened his eyes and squinted over at Keneb. ‘Like that, Fist. Beddict’s reconfigured his scouting patrols-they pair up. If Smiles and Koryk saw only one, then where was the other one?’ He shifted to get more comfortable and closed his eyes again. ‘And he runs five units-five pairs-in advance of his main body. So.’
‘So,’ repeated Keneb, frowning. He rose, slipped the dagger into his scabbard. ‘If he’s sent one or two down the track, they were meant to be seen. Sergeant Balm, find me that map.’
‘Map, sir? What map?’
Muttering under his breath, Keneb walked over to the heavies. ‘You there-yes, you-name?’
‘Reliko, sir.’
‘What are you doing with those heavies, Reliko?’
‘Why, cos I am one, sir.’
Watching this, Smiles snorted. The top of Reliko’s gnarly head barely reached her shoulder. The man looked like a prune with arms and legs.
‘Who’s your sergeant?’ Keneb asked the Dal Honese soldier.
‘Badan Gruk, sir. But he stayed back sick, sir, along with Sergeant Sinter and Kisswhere. Me and Vastly Blank here, we squadding up with Drawfirst and Shoaly, under Sergeant Primly, sir.’
‘Very well. Go into the command tent and bring me the map.’
‘Aye sir. You want the table with it?’
‘No, that won’t be necessary.’
As the soldier walked off, Fiddler said, ‘Coulda been there and back by now, sir. All by yourself.’
‘I could have, yes. And just for that observation, Sergeant, go and get that map-table for me.’
‘Thought it wasn’t necessary, sir?’
‘I changed my mind. On your feet.’
Groaning, Fiddler sat up, nudged Balm and said, ‘You and me, we got work to do.’
Blinking, Balm stared at him a moment. Then he leapt upright, sword in his hand. ‘Where are they, then?’
‘Follow me,’ Fiddler said, climbing to his feet. ‘And put that thing away before you poke me with it.’
‘Why would I stab you? I mean, I know you, right? I think. Aye, I know you.’
They passed Reliko on their way to the tent.
As the soldier stepped up, Keneb took the rolled-up hide. ‘Thank you. Reliko, before you go, a question-why are all the heavies examining their hands?’
‘We was adding up lost bits, sir, t’see if it made up a whole hand.’
‘Does it?’
‘We’re missing a thumb, but we heard there’s a heavy without any thumbs-might be over in Blistig’s legion.’
‘Indeed, and what would his name be?’
‘Nefarias Bredd, sir.’
‘And how would this soldier be able to wield any weapons, without thumbs?’
Reliko shrugged. ‘Can’t say, sir, as I only seen ’im once, and that was from too far away. I expect he ties ’em up sort of, somehow.’
‘Perhaps,’ ventured Keneb, ‘he’s missing only one thumb. Shield hand, perhaps.’
‘Might be, sir, might be, in which case as soon as we find a thumb, why, we’ll let him know.’ Reliko returned to his companions.
Keneb stared after the soldier, frowning.
‘Kingdoms toppled one by one,’ said Smiles, ‘because of soldiers like him, sir. Keep telling yourself that-that’s how I do it.’
‘Do what, scout?’
‘Stay sane, sir. He’s the one, you know.’
‘Who, what?’
‘The shortest heavy in the history of the Malazan Empire, sir.’
‘Really? Are you certain of that, scout?’
‘Sir?’
But he’d unfurled the map and was now studying it.
Fiddler and Balm were approaching, a heavy table between them. As soon as they arrived, Keneb rolled up the map and set it on the tabletop. ‘You can take that back now, Sergeants. Thank you.’
Smiles jogged her way back to where Koryk was hidden along the ridge. Behind her clunked Corporal Tarr, sounding like a damned tinker’s cart. She shot him a glare over one shoulder. ‘You shoulda strapped down, you know that, don’t you?’
‘This is a damned feint,’ said Tarr, ‘what difference does it make?’
They reached the base of the ridge.
‘I’ll wait here. Go collect the fool, Smiles, and be quick about it.’
Biting back a retort, she set off up the slope. It’d be different, she knew, if she was the corporal. And this was a perfect example. If she was corporal, it’d be Tarr doing this climb and that was a fact.
Koryk heard her coming and worked his way down to meet her. ‘No column, huh?’
‘No, how’d you guess?’
‘Didn’t have to. I waited. And… no column.’
They descended the slope side by side to where Tarr waited.
‘We lost the enemy, Corporal?’
‘Something like that, Koryk. And now the Fist’s got us on the move-we’re going to be buggered trying catch-up, too. He’s now thinking we’ve stuck our heads in a wasp nest.’
‘These Letherii couldn’t turn an ambush on us,’ Koryk pronounced. ‘We would’ve sniffed it out by now.’
‘But we didn’t,’ Smiles pointed out. ‘We been flushed, Koryk.’
‘Lazy,’ pronounced Tarr. ‘Overconfident. Fiddler was right.’
‘Of course he was,’ said Smiles. ‘He’s Fiddler. It’s always the problem, the people in charge never listen to the people in the know. It’s like two different worlds, two different languages.’
She stopped when she noticed both men looking at her. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ said Tarr, ‘except, well, that was a sharp observation there, Smiles.’
‘Oh, and did that shock you two?’
‘Shocked me,’ admitted Koryk.
She scowled at him.
But secretly, she was pleased. That’s right. I ain’t the fool you think I am. I ain’t the fool nobody thinks I am. Everybody, I mean. Well, they’re the real fools, anyway.
They hurried on, but long before they caught up to the company, it was all over.
The Letherii ambush caught Keneb’s mob coming down a forested slope that funnelled before reaching the basin. Enemy ranks rose up on both sides from fast-dug foxholes and loosed a few hundred un-fletched arrows with soft clay balls instead of barbed iron points. If the flights had been real, half the Malazans would have been downed, dead or wounded. A few more salvos and most of the rest would be out of commission.
Brys Beddict made an appearance in the midst of Letherii catcalls and cheering, walking up to Fist Keneb and painting with one dripping finger a red slash across his boiled-leather cuirass.
‘Sorry, Fist, but you have just been wiped out.’
‘Indeed, Commander,’ Keneb acknowledged. ‘Three hundred dead Bonehunters, cut down in a pocket. Very well done, although I suspect it highlights a lesson as yet undiscovered.’
The smile on Brys’s face faded slightly. ‘Fist? I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’
‘Sometimes, one’s tactics must prove brutal in the execution, Commander. Especially when the timing’s off and nothing can be done for it.’
‘I’m sorry?’
Horns sounded suddenly, from the ridge lines beyond the Letherii units-on all sides, in fact.
Keneb said, ‘Three hundred dead Bonehunters, Commander, and eight hundred dead Letherii, including their supreme commander. Not an ideal exchange for either side, but in a war, probably one the Adjunct could stomach.’
Brys sighed, his expression wry. ‘Lesson delivered, Fist Keneb. My compliments to the Adjunct.’
At that moment, Fiddler walked up to them. ‘Fist, you owe me and my squad two nights’ leave, sir.’
Keneb grinned at Brys Beddict. ‘As much as the Adjunct would appreciate the compliments, Commander, they in fact belong to this sergeant here.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘That’s another lesson to mull over,’ Keneb said, ‘the one about listening to your veterans, regardless of rank.’
‘Well,’ mused Brys, ‘I may have to go hunting for my few surviving veterans, then. None the less, Fist, the sacrifice of three hundred of your soldiers strikes me as a loss you can ill afford, regardless of the battle’s outcome.’
‘True. Hence my comment about timing, Commander. I sent a rider to Fist Blistig but we could not respond in time to your ambush. Obviously, I would rather have avoided all contact with your troops. But since I know we’d all prefer to sleep in real beds tonight, I thought it more instructive to invite the engagement. Now,’ he added, smiling, ‘we can all march back to Letheras.’
Brys drew out a handkerchief, wetted it from his canteen, and then stepped up to Fist Keneb, and carefully cleaned off the streak of red paint.
Captain Faradan Sort entered Kindly’s office to find her counterpart standing to one side of his desk and staring down at an enormous mound of what looked like hair heaped on the desktop.
‘Gods below, what is that?’
Kindly glanced over. ‘What does it look like?’
‘Hair.’
‘Correct. Animal hair, as best as I can determine. A variety of domestic beasts.’
‘It reeks. What is it doing on your desk?’
‘Good question. Tell me, was Lieutenant Pores in the outer office?’
She shook her head. ‘No one there, I’m afraid.’
He grunted. ‘Hiding, I expect.’
‘I doubt he’d do something like this, Kindly-’
‘Oh, never directly. No, but I would wager a wagonload of imperials he’s had a hand in it. He imagines himself very clever, does my lieutenant.’
‘If he owns anything he values greatly,’ she said, ‘crush it under a heel. That’s how I took care of the one I sensed was going to give me trouble. That was back in Seven Cities, and to this day he looks at me with hurt in his eyes.’
He glanced at her. ‘Hurt? Truly?’
‘Truly.’
‘That’s… exceptional advice, Faradan. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Anyway, I was coming by to see if you’d had any better luck finding our two wayward mages.’
‘No. We need to get High Mage Quick Ben involved in the search, I believe. Assuming,’ he added, ‘they’re worth finding.’
She turned away, walked to the window. ‘Kindly, Sinn saved many, many lives at Y’Ghatan. She did so the night of the assault and again with the survivors under the city. Her brother, Corporal Shard, is beside himself with worry. She is precipitous, yes, but I do not consider that necessarily a fault.’
‘And the Adjunct has, it seems, desperate need for mages,’ said Kindly. ‘Why is that?’
She shrugged. ‘I know as little as you, Kindly. We will march soon, away from the comforts of Letheras.’
The man grunted. ‘Never let a soldier get too comfortable. Leads to trouble every time. She’s right in kicking us into motion. Still, it’d be a comfort to know what we’re heading into.’
‘And a greater comfort to have more than one half-mad High Mage to support eight thousand soldiers.’ She paused, and then said, ‘We won’t find ourselves another Beak hiding among the squads. We’ve had our miracle, Kindly.’
‘You’re starting to sound as grim as Blistig.’
She shook herself. ‘You’re right. Apologies. I’m just worried about Sinn, that’s all.’
‘Then find Quick Ben. Get him looking into those closets or Whatever they’re called-’
‘Warrens.’
‘Right.’
Sighing, she swung round and went to the door. ‘I’ll send Pores to you if I see him.’
‘You won’t,’ Kindly said. ‘He’ll come up for air sooner or later, Faradan. Leave the lieutenant to me.’
Sergeant Sinter and her sister sat playing the Dal Honese version of bones with Badan Gruk. The human finger bones were polished with use, gleaming amber. The legend was that they’d belonged to three Li Heng traders who’d come to the village, only to be caught thieving. They’d lost more than their hands, naturally. Dal Honese weren’t much interested in delivering lessons; they preferred something more succinct and, besides, executing the fools just left the path open for more to come wandering in, and everyone liked a good torture session.
That was before things got civilized, of course. Kellanved had put an end to torture. ‘A state that employs torture invites barbarism and deserves nothing better than to suffer the harvest of its own excesses.’ That was said to have been from the Emperor himself, although Sinter had her doubts. Sounded too… literate, especially for a damned Dal Honese thief.
Anyway, life stopped being much fun once civilization arrived, or so the old ones muttered. But then, they were always muttering. It was the last career to take up before dying of oldness, the reward for living so long, she supposed. She didn’t expect to survive her career as a soldier. It was interesting to see how it was the green, fresh ones who did all the complaining. The veterans just stayed quiet. So maybe all that bitching was at both ends of life, the young and the old trapped inside chronic dissatisfaction.
Kisswhere collected up the bones and tossed them again. ‘Hah! Poor Badan Gruk-you won’t ever match that, let’s see you try!’
It was a pretty good cast, Sinter had to acknowledge. Four of the core patterns with only a couple of spars missing and one true bridge. Badan would need a near perfect throw to top Kisswhere’s run.
‘I’ll stop there, I said. Toss ’em, Badan. And no cheating.’
‘I don’t cheat,’ he said as he collected up the bones.
‘Then what’s that you just palmed?’
Badan opened his hand and scowled. ‘This one’s gummed! No wonder you got those casts!’
‘If it was gummed,’ Kisswhere retorted, ‘then it was from my sister’s last throw!’
‘Hood’s breath,’ sighed Sinter. ‘Look, you fools, we’re all cheating. It’s in our blood. So now we’ve got to accept the fact that none of us is going to admit they were the one using the gum to get a stick. Clean the thing off and let’s get on with it.’
The others subsided and Sinter was careful to hide her relief. That damned gum had been in her pouch too long, making it dirty, and she could feel the stuff on her fingers. She surreptitiously brought her hands down to her thighs and rubbed as if trying to warm up.
Kisswhere shot her a jaded look. The damned barracks was hot as a head-shrinker’s oven.
They made a point of ignoring the clump of boots as someone marched up to their table. Badan Gruk threw the bones-and achieved six out of six in the core.
‘Did you see that! Look!’ Badan’s smile was huge and hugely fake. ‘Look, you two, look at that cast!’
But they were looking at him instead, because cheaters couldn’t stand that for long-they’d twitch, they’d bead up, they’d squirrel on the chair.
‘Look!’ he said again, pointing, but the command sounded more like a plea, and all at once he sagged back and raised his hands. ‘Fingers clean, darlings-’
‘That would be a first,’ said the man standing now at their table.
Badan Gruk’s expression displayed hurt and innocence, with just a touch of indignation. ‘That wasn’t called for, sir. You saw my throw-you can see my fingers, too. Clean as clean can be. No gum, no tar, no wax. Soldiers can’t be smelly or dirty-it’s bad for morale.’
‘You sure about that?’
Sinter twisted in her chair. ‘Can we help you, Lieutenant Pores?’
The man’s eyes flickered in surprise. ‘You mistake me, Sergeant Sinter. I am Captain-’
‘Kindly was pointed out to us, sir.’
‘I thought I ordered you to cut your hair.’
‘We did,’ said Kisswhere. ‘It grew back. It’s a trait among Dal Honese, right in the blood, an aversion-is that the word, Sint? Sure it is. Aversion. To bad haircuts. We get them and our hair insists on growing back to what looks better. Happens overnight, sir.’
‘You might be comfortable,’ said Pores, ‘believing that I’m not Captain Kindly; that I’m not, in fact, the man who was pointed out to you. But can you be certain that the right one was pointed out to you? If Lieutenant Pores was doing the pointing, for example. He’s one for jokes in bad taste. Infamous for it, in fact. He could have elected to take advantage of you-it’s a trait of his, one suspects. In the blood, as it were.’
‘So,’ asked Sinter, ‘who might he have pointed to, sir?’
‘Why, anyone at all.’
‘But Lieutenant Pores isn’t a woman now, is she?’
‘Of course not, but-’
‘It was a woman,’ continued Sinter, ‘who did the pointing out.’
‘Ah, but she might have been pointing to Lieutenant Pores, since you asked about whoever was your immediate superior. Well,’ said Pores, ‘now that that’s cleared up, I need to check if you two women have put on the weight you were ordered to.’
Kisswhere and Sinter both leaned back to regard him.
The man gave them a bright smile.
‘Sir,’ said Sinter, ‘how precisely do you intend to do that?’
The smile was replaced by an expression of shock. ‘Do you imagine your captain to be some dirty old codger, Sergeant? I certainly hope not! No, you will come to my office at the ninth bell tonight. You will strip down to your undergarments in the outer office. When you are ready, you are to knock and upon hearing my voice you are to enter immediately. Am I understood, soldiers?’
‘Yes sir,’ said Sinter.
‘Until then.’
The officer marched off.
‘How long,’ asked Kisswhere after he’d left the barracks, ‘are we going to run with this, Sint?’
‘Early days yet,’ she smiled, collecting the bones. ‘Badan, since you’re out of the game for being too obvious, I need you to do a chore for me-well, not much of a chore-anyway, I need you to go out into the city and find me two of the fattest, ugliest whores you can.’
‘I don’t like where this is all going,’ Badan Gruk muttered.
‘Listen to you,’ chided Sinter, ‘you’re getting old.’
‘What did she say?’
Sandalath Drukorlat scowled. ‘She wondered why we’d waited so long.’
Withal grunted. ‘That woman, Sand…’
‘Yes.’ She paused just inside the doorway and glared at the three Nachts huddled beneath the window sill. Their long black, muscled arms were wrapped about one another, forming a clump of limbs and torsos from which three blunt heads made an uneven row, eyes thinned and darting with suspicion. ‘What’s with them?’
‘I think they’re coming with us,’ Withal replied. ‘Only, of course, they don’t know where we’re going.’
‘Tie them up. Lock them up-do something. Just keep them here, husband. They’re grotesque.’
‘They’re not my pets,’ he said.
She crossed her arms. ‘Really? Then why do they spend all their time under your feet?’
‘Honestly, I have no idea.’
‘Who do they belong to?’
He studied them for a long moment. Not one of the Nachts would meet his eyes. It was pathetic.
‘Withal.’
‘All right. I think they’re Mael’s pets.’
‘Mael!?’
‘Aye. I was praying to him, you see. And they showed up. On the island. Or maybe they showed up before I started praying-I can’t recall. But they got me off that island, and that was Mael’s doing.’
‘Then send them back to him!’
‘That doesn’t seem to be the way praying works, Sand.’
‘Mother bless us,’ she sighed, striding forward. ‘Pack up-we’re leaving tonight.’
‘tonight? It’ll be dark, Sand!’
She gave him the same glare she’d given Rind, Pule and Mape.
Dark, aye. Never mind.
The worst of it was, in turning away, he caught the looks of sympathy in the Nachts’ beady eyes, tracking him like mourners at a funeral.
Well, a man learns to take sympathy where he can get it.
‘If this is a new warren,’ whispered Grub, ‘then I think I’d rather we kept the old ones.’
Sinn was quiet, as she had been for most of what must have been an entire day, maybe longer, as they wandered this terrible world.
Windswept desert stretched out in all directions. The road they walked cut across it straight as a spear. Here and there, off to one side, they spied fields of stones that might have once been dwellings, and the remnants of sun-fired mud-brick pen or garden walls, but nothing grew here, nothing at all. The air was acrid, smelling of burning pitch-and that was not too surprising, as black pillars of smoke stalked the horizons.
On the road itself, constructed of crushed rock and, possibly, glass, they came upon scenes of devastation. Burnt-out hulks of carriages and wagons, scorched clothing and shattered furniture. Fire-blackened corpses, limbs curled like tree roots and hands like bird feet, mouths agape and hollow sockets staring at the empty sky. Twisted pieces of metal lay scattered about, none remotely identifiable to Grub.
Breathing made his throat sore, and the bitter chill of the morning had given way to blistering heat. Eyes stinging, feet dragging, he followed in Sinn’s wake until her shadow lengthened to a stretched-out shape painted in pitch, and to his eyes it was as if he was looking down upon the woman she would one day become. He realized that his fear of her was growing-and her silence was making it worse.
‘Will you now be mute to me as well?’ he asked her.
She glanced back over her shoulder. Momentarily.
It would soon grow cold again-he’d lost too much fluid to survive a night of shivering. ‘We need to camp, Sinn. Make a fire-’
She barked a laugh, but did not turn round. ‘Fire,’ she said. ‘Yes. Fire. Tell me, Grub, what do you believe in?’
‘What?’
‘Some things are more real than others. For everyone. Each one, different, always different. What’s the most real to you?’
‘We can’t survive this place, that’s what’s most real, Sinn. We need water. Food. Shelter.’
He saw her nod. ‘That’s what this warren is telling us, Grub. Just that. What you believe has to do with surviving. It doesn’t go any further, does it? What if I told you that it used to be that for almost everybody? Before the cities, before people invented being rich.’
‘Being rich? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Before some people found other things to believe in. Before they made those things more real than anything else. Before they decided it was all right even to kill for them. Or enslave people. Or keep them stupid and poor.’ She shot him a look. ‘Did you know I had a Tanno tutor? A Spiritwalker.’
‘I don’t know anything about them. Seven Cities priests, right?’
‘He once told me that an untethered soul can drown in wisdom.’
‘What?’
‘Wisdom grows by stripping away beliefs, until the last tether is cut, and suddenly you float free. Only, because your eyes are wide open, you see right away that you can’t float in what you’re in. You can only sink. That’s why the meanest religions work so hard at keeping their followers ignorant. Knowledge is poison. Wisdom is depthless. Staying ignorant keeps you in the shallows. Every Tanno one day takes a final spiritwalk. They cut the last tether, and the soul can’t go back. When that happens, the other Tannos mourn, because they know that the spiritwalker has drowned.’
His mouth was too dry, his throat too sore, but even if that had been otherwise, he knew he would have nothing to say to any of that. He knew, after all, about his own ignorance.
‘Look around, Grub. See? There are no gifts here. Look at these stupid bodies and their stupid wagonloads of furniture. The last thing that was real for them, the only thing, was fire.’
His attention was drawn to a dust-cloud, rising in a slanted shroud of gold. Something was on a track that would converge with this road. A herd? An army?
‘Fire is not the gift you think it is, Grub.’
‘We’ll die tonight without it.’
‘We need to stay on this road.’
‘Why?’
‘To find out where it leads.’
‘We’ll die here, then.’
‘This land, Grub,’ she said, ‘has generous memories.’
The sun was low by the time the army arrived. Horse-drawn chariots and massive wagons burdened with plunder. The warriors were dark-skinned, tall and thin, bedecked in bronze armour. Grub thought there might be a thousand of them, maybe more. He saw spearmen, archers, and what must be the equivalent of heavy infantry, armed with sickle-bladed axes and short curved swords.
They cut across the track of the road as if blind to it, and as Grub stared he was startled to realize that the figures and their horses and chariots were vaguely transparent. They are ghosts. ‘These,’ he said to Sinn who stood beside him, ‘are this land’s memories?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can they see us?’
She pointed at one chariot that had thundered past only to turn round at the urging of the man behind the driver, and was now drawing up opposite them. ‘See him-he’s a priest. He can’t see us, but he senses us. Holiness isn’t always in a place, Grub. Sometimes it’s what’s passing through.’
He shivered, hugged himself. ‘Stop this, Sinn. We’re not gods.’
‘No, we’re not. We’re’-and she laughed-‘more like divine messengers.’
The priest had leapt down from the chariot-Grub could now see the old blood splashed across the spokes of the high wheels, and saw where blades were fitted in times of battle, projecting out from the hubs. A mass charge by such instruments of war would deliver terrible slaughter.
The hawk-faced man was edging closer, groping like a blind man.
Grub made to step back but Sinn caught him by the arm and held him fast.
‘Don’t,’ she murmured. ‘Let him touch the divine, Grub. Let him receive his gift of wisdom.’
The priest had raised his hands. Beyond, the entire army had halted, and Grub saw what must be a king or commander-perched on a huge, ornate chariot-drawing up to observe the strange antics of his priest.
‘We can give him no wisdom,’ Grub said. ‘Sinn-’
‘Don’t be a fool. Just stand here. Wait. We don’t have to do anything.’
Those two outstretched hands came closer. The palms were speckled with dried blood. There were, however, no calluses upon them. Grub hissed, ‘He is no warrior.’
‘No,’ Sinn agreed, ‘but he so likes the blood.’
The palms hovered, slipped forward, and unerringly settled upon their brows.
Grub saw the priest’s eyes widen, and he knew at once that the man was seeing through-through to this road and its litter of destruction-to an age either long before or yet to come: the age in which Grub and Sinn existed, solid and real.
The priest lurched back and howled.
Sinn’s laughter was harsh. ‘He saw what was real! He saw!’ She spun to face Grub, her eyes bright. ‘The future is a desert! And a road! And no end to the stupid wars, the insane slaughter-’ She whirled back and jabbed a finger at the wailing priest who was staggering back to his chariot. ‘He believed in the sun god! He believed in immortality-of glory, of wealth-golden fields, lush gardens, sweet rains and sweet rivers flowing without cease! He believed his people are-hah!-chosen! They all do, don’t you see? They do, we do, everyone does! See our gift, Grub? See what knowledge yields him? The sanctuary of ignorance-is shattered! Garden into wilderness, cast out into the seas of wisdom! Is not our message divine?’
Grub did not think he had any tears left in him. He was wrong.
The army and its priest and its king all fled, wild as the wind. But, before they did, slaves appeared and raised a cairn of stones. Which they then surrounded with offerings: jars of beer and wine and honey, dates, figs, loaves of bread and two throat-cut goats spilling blood into the sand.
The feast was ghostly, but Sinn assured Grub that it would sustain them. Divine gifts, she said, were not gifts at all. The receiver must pay for them.
‘And he has done that, has he not, Grub? Oh, he has done that.’
The Errant stepped into the vast, impossible chamber. Gone now the leisure of reminiscences, the satisfied stirring of brighter days long since withered colourless, almost dead. Knuckles trailed a step behind him, as befitted his role of old and his role to come.
She was awake, hunched over a scattering of bones. Trapped in games of chance and mischance, the brilliant, confounding offerings of Sechul Lath, Lord of the Hold of Chance-the Toppler, the Conniver, the Wastrel of Ruin. Too foolish to realize that she was challenging, in the Lord’s cast, the very laws of the universe which were, in truth, far less predictable than any mortal might believe.
The Errant walked up and with one boot kicked the ineffable pattern aside.
Her face stretched into a mask of rage. She reared, hands lifting-and then froze as she fixed her eyes upon the Errant.
‘Kilmandaros.’
He saw the flicker of fear in her gaze.
‘I have come,’ he said to her, ‘to speak of dragons.’
In my lifelong study of the scores of species of ants to be found in the tropical forests of Dal Hon, I am led to the conviction that all forms of life are engaged in a struggle to survive, and that within each species there exists a range of natural but variable proclivities, of physical condition and of behaviour, which in turn weighs for or against in the battle to survive and procreate. Further, it is my suspicion that in the act of procreation, such traits are passed on. By extension, one can see that ill traits reduce the likelihood of both survival and procreation. On the basis of these notions, I wish to propose to my fellow scholars at this noble gathering a law of survival that pertains to all forms of life. But before I do so, I must add one more caveat, drawn from the undeniable behavioural characteristics of, in my instance of speciality, ants. To whit, success of one form of life more often than not initiates devastating population collapse among competitors, and indeed, sometimes outright extinction. And that such annihilation of rivals may in fact be a defining feature of success.
Thus, my colleagues, I wish to propose a mode of operation among all forms of life, which I humbly call-in my four-volume treatise-‘The Betrayal of the Fittest’.
OBSESSIONAL S CROLLS
SIXTH DAY PROCEEDINGS
ADDRESS OF SKAVAT GILL
UNTA, MALAZAN EMPIRE, 1097 BURN’S SLEEP
As if riding a scent on the wind; or through the tremble in the ground underfoot; or perhaps the air itself carried alien thoughts, thoughts angry, malign-whatever the cause, the K’Chain Che’Malle knew they were now being hunted. They had no patience for Kalyth and her paltry pace, and it was Gunth Mach whose posture slowly shifted, spine drawing almost horizontal to the ground-as if in the course of a single morning some force reshaped her skeleton, muscles and joints-and before the sun stood high she had gathered up the Destriant and set her down behind the humped shoulder-blades, where the dorsal spikes had flattened and where the thick hide had formed something like a saddle seat. And Kalyth found herself riding a K’Chain Che’Malle, the sensation far more fluid than that she recalled of sitting on the back of a horse, so that it seemed they flowed over the broken scrubland, at a speed somewhere between a canter and a gallop. Gunth Mach made use of her forelimbs only as they skirted slopes or ascended the occasional low hill; mostly the scarred, scale-armoured arms remained drawn up like the pincers of a mantis.
The K’ell Hunters Rythok and Kor Thuran flanked her, with Sag’Churok almost a third of a league ahead-even from her vantage point atop Gunth Mach, Kalyth rarely caught sight of the huge creature, a speck of motion betrayed only by its shadow. All of the K’Chain Che’Malle now bore on their scaled hides the mottled hues of the ground and its scant plant cover.
And yet… and yet… they were afraid.
Not of those human warriors who pursued them-that was little more than an inconvenience, an obstacle to their mission. No, instead, the fear within these terrible demons was deeper, visceral. It rode out from Gunth’an Acyl, the Matron, in ice-laden ripples, crowding up against each and every one of her children. The pressure built, grinding, thunderous.
A war is coming. We all know this. But as to the face of this enemy, I alone am blind.
Destriant-what does it mean to be one? To these creatures? What faith am I supposed to shape? I have no history to draw from, no knowledge of K’Chain Che’Malle legends or myths-assuming they have any. Gunth’an Acyl has fixed her eyes upon humankind. She would pillage the beliefs of my kind.
She is indeed mad! I can give them nothing!
She would pluck not a single fragment from her own people. They were all dead, after all. Betrayed by their own faiths-that the rains would always come; that the land would ever provide; that children would be born and mothers and aunts would raise them; that there would be campfires and singing and dancing and loves and passions and laughter. All lies, delusions, false hopes-there was no point in stirring those ashes.
What else was left to her, then, to make this glorious new religion? When countless thousands of lizard eyes fixed unblinking on her, what could she offer them?
They had travelled east for the morning but were now angling southward once more, and Kalyth sensed a gradual slowing of pace, and as they slipped over a low rise she caught sight of Sag’Churok, stationary and apparently watching their approach.
Something had happened. Something had changed.
A gleam of weathered white-the trunk of a fallen tree?-amidst the low grasses directly ahead, and for the first time Kalyth was jolted as Gunth Mach leapt to one side to avoid it. As they passed the object, the Destriant saw that it was a long bone. Whatever it had belonged to, she realized, must have been enormous.
The other K’Chain Che’Malle were reacting in a like manner as each came upon another skeletal remnant, dancing away as if the splintered bones exuded some poison aura that assailed their senses. Kalyth saw that the K’ell’s flanks glistened, dripping with oil from their glands, and so she knew that they were all afflicted by an extremity of emotion-terror, rage? She had no means of reading such things.
Was this yet another killing field? She wasn’t sure, but something whispered to her that all of these broken bones belonged to a single, gargantuan beast. A dragon? Think of the Nests, the Rooted. Carved in the likeness of dragons… dawn’s breath, can this be the religion of the K’Chain Che’Malle? The worship of dragons?
It made a kind of sense-were these reptiles not physically similar to such mythical beasts? Though she had never seen a dragon, even among her own people there were legends, and in fact she recalled one tale told to her as a child-a fragmented, confused story, which made its recounting rare since it possessed little entertainment value. ‘Dragons swim the sky. Fangs slash and blood rains down. The dragons warred with one another, scores upon scores, and the earth below, and all things that dwelt upon it, could do naught but cower. The breath of the dragons made a conflagration of the sky…’
They arrived where waited Sag’Churok. As soon as Gunth Mach halted, Kalyth slipped down, her legs almost folding under her. Righting herself, she looked around.
Skull fragments. Massive fangs chipped and split. It was as if the creature had simply blown apart.
Kalyth looked upward and saw, directly overhead, a dark speck, wheeling, circling. He shows himself. This, here, this is important. She finally understood what had so agitated the K’Chain Che’Malle. Not fear. Not rage. Anticipation. They expect something from me.
She fought down a moment of panic. Mouth dry, feeling strangely displaced inside her own body, she wandered into the midst of the bone-field. There were gouges scored into the shattered plates of the dragon’s skull, the tracks of bites or talons. She found a dislodged tooth and pulled it up from its web of grasses, heavy as a club in her hands. Sun-bleached and polished on one side, pitted and stained amber on the other. She thought she might laugh-a part of her had never even believed in dragons.
The K’Chain Che’Malle remained at a respectful distance, watching her. What do you want of me? Should I pray? Raise a cairn from these bones? Let blood? Her searching gaze caught something-a large fragment of the back of the skull, and embedded in it… she walked closer, crouched down.
A fang, much like the one she still carried, only larger, and strangely discoloured. The sun had failed to bleach this one. The wind and the grit it carried had not pitted its enamel. The rain had not polished its surface. It had been torn from its root, so deeply had it impaled the dragon’s skull. And it was the hue of rust.
She set down the tooth she had brought over, and knelt. Reaching out, she ran her fingers along the reddish fang. Cold as metal, a chill defying the sun and its blistering heat. Its texture reminded Kalyth of petrified wood. She wondered what creature this could have belonged to-an iron dragon? But how can that be? She attempted to remove the tooth, but it would not budge.
Sag’Churok spoke in her mind, in a voice strangely faint. ‘Destriant, in this place it is difficult to reach you. Your mind. The otataral would deny us.’
‘The what?’
‘There is no single god. There can never be a single god. For there to be one face, there must be another. The Nah’ruk did not see it in such terms, of course. They spoke of forces in opposition, of the necessity of tension. All that binds must be bound to two foci, at the minimum. Even should a god exist alone, isolated in its perfection, it will come to comprehend the need for a force outside itself, beyond its omniscience. If all remains within, Destriant-exclusively within, that is-then there is no reason for anything to exist, no reason for creation itself. If all is ordered, untouched by chaos, then the universe that was, is and will ever be, is without meaning. Without value. The god would quickly comprehend, then, that its own existence is also without meaning, and so it would cease. It would succumb to the logic of despair.’
She was studying the rusty fang as Sag’Churok’s words whispered through her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed, ‘I don’t understand.’ But then, maybe she did.
The K’Chain Che’Malle resumed: ‘In its knowledge, the god would understand the necessity for that which lies outside itself, beyond its direct control. In that tension meaning will be found. In that struggle value is born. If it suits you and your kind, Destriant, fill the ether with gods, goddesses, First Heroes, spirits and demons. Kneel to one or many, but never-never, Kalyth-hold to a belief that but one god exists, that all that is resides within that god. Should you hold such a belief, then by every path of reasoning that follows, you cannot but conclude that your one god is cursed, a thing of impossible aspirations and deafening injustice, whimsical in its cruelty, blind to mercy and devoid of pity. Do not misunderstand me. Choose to live within one god as you like, but in so doing be certain to acknowledge that there is an “other”, an existence beyond your god. And if your god has a face, then so too does that other. In such comprehension, Destriant, will you come to grasp the freedom that lies at the heart of all life; that choice is the singular moral act and all one chooses can only be considered in a moral context if that choice is free.’
Freedom. That notion mocked her. ‘What-what is this “otataral” you spoke of, Sag’Churok?’
‘We are reviled for revealing the face of that other god-that god of negation. Your kind have a flawed notion of magic. You cut the veins of other worlds and drink of the blood, and this is your sorcery. But you do not understand. All life is sorcery. In its very essence, the soul is magical, and each process of chemistry, of obeisance and cooperation, of surrender and of struggle-at every scale conceivable-is a consort of sorcery. Destroy magic and you destroy life.’ There was a long pause, and then a flood of bitter amusement flowed through Kalyth. ‘When we kill, we kill magic. Consider the magnitude of that crime, if you dare.
‘What is otataral, you ask? Otataral is the opposite of magic. Negation to creation, absence to presence. If life is your god, then otataral is the other god, and that god is death. But, please understand, it is not an enemy. It is the necessary manifestation of a force in opposition. Both are essential, and together they are bound in the nature of existence itself. We are reviled for revealing the truth.
‘The lesser creatures of this and every other world do not question any of this. Their comprehension is implicit. When we kill the beasts living on this plain, when we close our jaws about the back of the neck. When we grip hard to choke off the wind pipe. When we do all this, we watch, with intimate compassion, with profound understanding, the light of life leave our victim’s eyes. We see the struggle give way to acceptance, and in our souls, Destriant, we weep.’
Still she knelt, but now there were tears streaming down her face, as all that Sag’Churok felt was channelled through her, cruel as sepsis, sinking deep into her own soul.
‘The slayer, the Otataral Dragon, has been bound. But it will be freed. They will free it. For they believe that they can control it. They cannot. Destriant, will you now give us the face of our god?’
She whirled round. ‘How am I supposed to do that?’ she demanded. ‘Is this Otataral Dragon your god?’
‘No, Destriant,’ Sag’Churok replied in sorrow, ‘it is the other.’
She ran her hands through the brittle tangles of her hair. ‘What you want… that face.’ She shook her head. ‘It can’t be dead. It must be alive, a living thing. You built keeps in the shape of dragons, but that faith is ruined, destroyed by failure. You were betrayed, Sag’Churok. You all were.’ She gestured, encompassing this killing field. ‘Look here-the “other” killed your god.’
All of the K’Chain Che’Malle were facing her now.
‘My own people were betrayed as well. It seems,’ she added wryly, ‘we share something after all. It’s a beginning, of sorts.’ She scanned the area once more. ‘There is nothing here, for us.’
‘You misunderstand, Destriant. It is here. It is all here.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ She was close to tears yet again, but this time from helplessness. ‘They’re just… bones.’
She started as Rythok stepped forward, massive blades lifting threateningly.
Some silent command visibly battered the Hunter and he halted, trembling, jaws half agape.
If she failed, she realized, they might well kill her. Cut her down as they had done Redmask, the poor fool. These creatures managed failure no better than humans. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘But I don’t believe in anything. Not gods, not anything. Oh, they might exist, but about us they don’t care. Why should they? We destroy to create. But we deny the value of everything we destroy, which serves to make its destruction easier on our consciences. All that we reshape to suit us is diminished, its original beauty for ever lost. We have no value system that does not beggar the world, that does not slaughter the beasts we share it with-as if we are the gods.’ She sank back down on to her knees and clutched the sides of her head. ‘Where are these thoughts coming from? It was all so much simpler, once, here-in my mind-so much simpler. Spirits below, I so want to go back!’
She only realized she had been beating at her temples when two massive hands grasped her wrists and pulled down her arms. She stared up into Gunth Mach’s emerald eyes.
And for the first time, the Daughter spoke inside her mind. ‘Release, now. Breathe deep my breath, Destriant.’
Kalyth’s desperate gasping now caught a strange, pungent scent, emanating from Gunth Mach.
The world spun. She sagged back, sprawled to the ground. As something unfolded in her skull like an alien flower, virulent, beguiling-she lost grip of her own body, was whipped away.
And found herself standing on cold, damp stone, nostrils filling with a pungent, rank stench. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she cried out and staggered back.
A dragon reared above her, its slick scales the colour of rust. Enormous spikes pinned its forelimbs, holding the creature up against a massive, gnarled tree. Other spikes had been driven into it but the dragon’s immense weight had pulled them loose. Its wedge-shaped head, big as a migrant’s wagon, hung down, streaming drool. The wings were crumpled like storm-battered caravan tents. Fresh blood surrounded the base of the tree, so that it seemed that the entire edifice rose from a gleaming pool.
‘The slayer, the Otataral Dragon, has been bound. But it will be freed…’ Sag’Churok’s words echoed in her mind. ‘They will free it.’ Who? No matter, she realized. It would be done. This Otataral Dragon would be loosed upon the world, upon every world. A force of negation, a slayer of magic. And they would lose control of it-only mad fools could believe they could enslave such an entity.
‘Wait,’ she hissed, thoughts racing, ‘wait. Forces in opposition. Take away one-spike it to a tree-and the other is lost. It cannot exist, cannot survive looking across the Abyss and seeing nothing, no one, no foe. This is why you have lost your god, Sag’Churok. Or, if it still lives, it has been driven into the oblivion of insanity. Too alone. An orphan… just like me.’
A revelation, of sorts. What could she make of it?
Kalyth stared up at the dragon. ‘When you are finally freed, then perhaps your “other” will return, to engage with you once more. In that eternal battle.’ But even then, this scheme had failed before. It would fail again, because it was flawed-something was wrong, something was… broken. ‘Forces in opposition, yes, that I do understand. And we each play our roles. We each fashion our “others” and chart the course of our lives as that eternal campaign, seasons of gain, seasons of loss. Battles and wounds and triumphs and bitter defeats. In comforts we fashion our strongholds. In convictions we occupy our fortifications. In violence we forge our peace. In peace, we win desolation.’
Somewhere far behind her, Kalyth’s body was lying on half-dead grasses, cast down on to the heart-stone of the Wastelands. ‘It is here. It is all here.’
‘We are broken indeed. We are… fallen.’
What do to, then, when the battle cannot be won? No answers burgeoned before her. The only truth rearing to confront her was this blood-soaked sacrifice, destined to be un-done. ‘Is it true, then, that a world without magic is a dead world? Is this what you promise? Is this to be your future? But no, for when you are at last freed, then your enemy will awaken once more, and the war will resume.’
There was no place in that scheme for mortals. A new course for the future was needed. For the K’Chain Che’Malle. For all humans in every empire, every tribe. If nothing changed in the mortal world, then there would be no end to the conflicts, to the interminable forces in opposition, be they cultures, religions, whatever.
She had no idea that intelligent life could be so stupid.
‘They want a faith from me. A religion. They want to return to the vanity of the righteous. I can’t do it. I can’t. Rythok had better kill me, for I will offer them nothing they want to hear.’
Abruptly, she was staring up at a cloudless blue sky, heat rustling across her bare limbs, her face, the tracks of dried tears tight on her cheeks. She sat up. Her muscles ached. A sour taste thickened her tongue.
Still the K’Chain Che’Malle faced her.
‘Very well,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘I give you this. Find your faith in each other. Look no further. The gods will war, and all that we do will remain beneath their notice. Stay low. Move quietly. Out of sight. We are ants in the grass, lizards among the rocks.’ She paused. ‘Somewhere, out there, you will find the purest essence of that philosophy. Perhaps in one person, perhaps in ten thousand. Looking to no other entity, no other force, no other will. Bound solely in comradeship, in loyalty honed absolute. Yet devoid of all arrogance. Wise in humility. And that one, or ten thousand, is on a path. Unerring, it readies itself, not to shake a fist at the heavens. But to lift a lone hand, a hand filled with tears.’ She found she was glaring at the giant reptiles. ‘You want a faith? You want someone or something to believe in? No, do not worship the one or the ten thousand. Worship the sacrifice they will make, for they make it in the name of compassion-the only cause worth fighting and dying for.’
Suddenly exhausted, she turned away, kicked aside the bleached fang at her feet. ‘Now, let us go find our champions.’
She led the way, and the K’Chain Che’Malle were content with that. Sag’Churok watched the frail, puny human taking her meagre strides, leaving behind the rise where two dragons had done battle.
And the K’ell Hunter was well pleased.
He sensed, in a sweet wave, Gunth Mach’s pride.
Pride in their Destriant.
Drawn by four oxen the large wagon rolled into the camp, mobbed by mothers, husbands, wives and children who raised their voices in ululating grief. Arms reached out as if to grab hold of their dead loved ones who lay stacked like felled boles on the flat bed, as the burden of the slain rocked to a halt. The mob churned. Dogs howled.
On a nearby hill, Setoc stood watching the bedlam in the camp, the only motion from her the stirring of her weathered hair. Warriors were running back to their yurts to ready themselves for war, although none knew the enemy’s face, and there was no trail to track. Would-be war leaders shouted and bellowed, beating on their own chests or waving weapons in the air. For all the grief and anger, there was something pathetic to the whole scene, something that made her turn away, suddenly weary.
No one liked being a victim of the unknown. They were driven to lash out, driven to deliver indiscriminate violence upon whoever happened to be close. She could hear some of those warriors vowing vengeance upon the Akrynnai, the D’rhasilhani, even the Letherii.
The Gadra Clan was going to war. Warchief Stolmen was under siege in his own tent, and to deny the murderous hunger of his warriors would see him deposed, bloodily. No, he would need to stand tall, drawing his bhederin cloak about his broad shoulders, and take up his twin-bladed axe. His wife, if anything fiercer than Stolmen himself, would begin painting the white mask of death, the slayer’s bone-grin, upon her husband’s scarred features. Her own mother, a wrinkled hatchet-faced hag, would do the same to her. Edges singing on whetstones, the Barghast were going to war.
She saw Cafal emerging from Stolmen’s tent. Even at this distance, she could read his frustration as he marched towards the largest crowd of warriors. And when his steps slowed and he finally halted, Setoc understood him well enough. He had lost the Gadra. She watched as he looked round until he caught sight of yet another solitary figure.
Torrent was already saddling his horse. Not to join in this madness. But to leave.
As Cafal set out towards the Awl warrior, Setoc went down to meet them.
Whatever words they exchanged before she arrived were terse, unsatisfying to the Great Warlock. He noted her approach and faced her. ‘You too?’ he asked.
‘I will go with you,’ she said. ‘The wolves will join none of this. It is empty.’
‘The Gadra mean to wage war against the Akrynnai,’ said Cafal. ‘But the Akrynnai have done nothing.’
She nodded, reaching up to pull her long fair hair from her face as the hot wind gusted.
Torrent was lifting himself on to his horse. His face was bleak, haunted. He had the look of a man who did not sleep well at night. He gathered his reins.
Cafal turned to him. ‘Wait! Please, Torrent, wait.’
The man grimaced. ‘Is this to be my life? Dragged from one woman’s tent to the next? Am I to rut my days away? Or do I choose instead to fight at your side? Why would I do that? You Barghast-you are no different from my own people, and you will share their fate.’ He nodded towards Setoc. ‘The wolf-child is right. The scavengers of this land will grow fat.’
Setoc caught a flash of something crouched behind a tuft of grass-a hare, no, Talamandas, that thing of twine and sticks. Child of the mad Barghast gods, child of children. Spying on them. She sneered.
‘But,’ asked Cafal, ‘where will you go, Torrent?’
‘I shall ride to Tool, and beg my leave of him. I shall ask for his forgiveness, for I should have been the warrior to fall against the Letherii, in defence of the Awl children. Not his friend. Not the Mezla.’
Cafal’s eyes had widened at Torrent’s words, and after a moment he seemed to sag. ‘Ah, Torrent. Malazans have a way…’ He lifted a sad smile to the Awl. ‘They do humble us all. Tool will reject your words-there is nothing to forgive. There is no crime set against you. It was the Mezla’s way, his choice.’
‘He rode out in my place-’
The Great Warlock straightened. ‘And could you have fared as well as he did, Torrent?’
That was a cruel question and Setoc saw how it stung the young warrior. ‘That is not the-’
‘But it is,’ Cafal snapped. ‘If Toc had judged you his superior in battle he would have exhorted you to ride against the Letherii. He would have taken the children away. And if it was that Malazan sitting here on his horse before me right now, he would not be moaning about forgiveness. Do you understand me, Torrent?’
The man looked cruelly bludgeoned by Cafal’s words. ‘Even if it is so, I ride to Tool, and then I shall set off, on my own. I have chosen. Tie no strands to my fate, Great Warlock.’
Setoc barked a laugh. ‘He is not the one to do that, Torrent.’
His eyes narrowed on her. She thought he might retort-accusations, anger, bridling indignation. Instead, he said nothing, simply drawing up his reins. A last glance back to Cafal. ‘You walk, but I ride. I am not interested in slowing my pace to suit you-’
‘And what if I told you I could travel in such a way as to reach Tool long before you will?’
‘You cannot.’
Setoc saw the Great Warlock lick dry lips; saw the sweat that had appeared upon his broad, flat brow, and her heart began thudding hard in her chest. ‘Cafal,’ she said, her voice flat, ‘this is not your land. The warrens you people speak of are weak here-I doubt you can even reach them. Your gods are not ready-’
‘Speak not of the Barghast gods!’ squealed a voice. Talamandas, the sticksnare, scrambled out from cover and came closer in fits and starts. ‘You know nothing, witch-’
‘I know enough,’ she replied. ‘Yes, your kind once walked these plains, but how long ago was that? You warred with the Tiste Edur. You were driven from this place. A thousand years ago? Ten thousand? So now you return, to avenge your ancestors-but you found the Edur nothing like your legends. Unlike you Barghast, they had moved on-’
‘As the victorious ever do,’ the sticksnare hissed. ‘Their wounds heal quickly, yes. Nothing festers, nothing rots, there is no bitterness on their tongues.’
She spat in disbelief. ‘How can you say that? Their Emperor is dead. They are driven from all the lands they conquered!’
‘But not by our hands!’
The shriek snatched heads round. Warriors drew closer. Cafal remained silent, his expression suddenly closed, while Torrent leaned forward on the saddle, squinting down at the sticksnare as if doubting his own sanity.
Setoc smiled at Talamandas. ‘Yes, that is what galls, isn’t it? So. Now,’ and she turned to face the score or so warriors half-encircling them, ‘now, yes, you would deliver such defeat upon the Akrynnai. Wounds that will fester, rot that sinks deep into the soul, that cruel taste riding every breath.’
Her tirade seemed to buffet them. She spat again. ‘They did not kill your scouts. You all know this. And you do not even care.’ She pointed at Cafal. ‘And so the Great Warlock now goes to Tool, and he will say to him: War Master, yet another clan has broken away. They wage senseless war upon the wrong enemy, and so it will come to pass that, by the actions of the Gadra Clan, every people in this land will rise up against the Barghast. Akrynnai, D’rhasilhani, Keryn, Saphinand, Bolkando. You will be assailed from all sides. And those of you not killed in battle will be driven into the Wastelands, that vast ocean of nothing, and there you will vanish, your bones turning to dust.’
There was movement in the crowd, and warriors stepped aside as a scowling Warchief Stolmen lumbered forward, his wife a step behind him. That woman’s eyes were dark, savage with hatred as she fixed her glare upon Setoc.
‘This is what you do, witch,’ she said in a rasp. ‘You weaken us. Again and again, you seek to weaken us!’
‘Are you so eager to see your children die?’ Setoc asked her.
‘Eager to see them win glory!’
‘For themselves or for you, Sekara?’
Sekara would have flung herself at Setoc then, but Stolmen held out a staying arm, knocking her back. Though he could not see it, his wife then shot him a look of venomous malice.
Torrent spoke quietly to Setoc. ‘Come with me, wolf-child. We will ride out of this madness.’ He reached down with one hand.
She grasped hold of his forearm and he swung her easily on to the horse’s back. As she closed her arms round his waist he said, ‘Do you need to collect anything, Setoc? From your tent?’
‘No.’
‘Send them off!’ snarled Sekara. ‘Go, you foreign liars! Akrynnai spies! Go and poison your own kind! With terror-tell them, we are coming! The White Face Barghast! And we shall make of this land our home once again! Tell them, witch! They are the invaders, not us!’
Setoc had long sensed the animosity building among the women in this clan. She drew too many eyes among the men. Her wildness made them hungry, curious-she was not blind to any of this. Even so, this burst of spite startled her, frightened her. She forced herself to meet Sekara’s blazing eyes. ‘I am the holder of a thousand hearts.’ Saying this, she looked to Sekara’s husband and smiled a knowing smile.
Stolmen was forced to restrain his wife as she sought to lunge forward, a knife in one hand.
Torrent backed his horse, and she could feel how he tensed. ‘Enough of that!’ he snapped over his shoulder. ‘Do you want us skinned alive?’
The mob had grown and now surrounded them. And, she saw at last, there were far more women than men in it. She felt herself withering beneath the hateful stares fixed upon her. Not just wives, either. That she was sitting snug against Torrent was setting fires in the eyes of the younger women, the maidens.
Cafal stepped closer, his face pale in dread mockery of the white paint of the warriors. ‘I am going to open a warren,’ he said in a low voice. ‘With the help of Talamandas. We leave together, or you will be killed here, do you understand? It’s too late for the Gadra-your words, Setoc, held too many truths. They are shamed.’
‘Be quick, then,’ Torrent said in a growl.
He swung round. ‘Talamandas.’
‘Leave them to their fate,’ muttered the sticksnare, crouched like a miniature ghoul. It seemed to be twitching as if plucked and prodded by unseen hands.
‘No. All of us.’
‘You will regret your generosity, Cafal.’
‘The warren, Talamandas.’
The sticksnare snarled wordlessly and then straightened, spreading wide its scrawny twig arms.
‘Cafal!’ hissed Setoc. ‘Wait! There is a sickness-’
White fire erupted around them in a sudden deafening roar. The horse screamed, reared. Setoc’s grip broke and she tumbled back. Searing heat, stunning cold. As quickly as the flames arrived, they vanished with a thunderous clap that reverberated in her skull. A kick from a hoof sent her skidding, pain throbbing from a bruised thigh. There was darkness now-or, she thought with a shock-she was blind. Her eyes curdled in their sockets, cooked like eggs-
Then she caught a glimmer, something smeared, a reflected blade. Torrent’s horse was backing, twisting from side to side-the Awl warrior still rode the beast and she could hear him cursing as he fought to steady the animal. He had drawn his scimitar.
‘Gods below!’
That cry had come from Cafal. Setoc sat up. Stony, damp earth, clumps of mould or guano squishing beneath her. She smelled burning grasses. Crawling to the vague blot in the gloom whence came the Warlock’s voice, she struggled against waves of nausea. ‘You fool,’ she croaked. ‘You should have listened. Cafal-’
‘Talamandas. He’s… he’s destroyed.’
The stench of something smouldering was stronger now, and she caught the gleam of scattered embers. ‘He burned? He burned, didn’t he? The wrong warren-it ate him, devoured him-I warned you, Cafal. Something has infected your warrens-’
‘No, Setoc,’ Cafal cut in. ‘It is not like that, not like what you say-we knew of that poison. We were warded against it. This was… different. Spirits fend, we have lost our greatest shaman-’
‘You did not know it, did you? That gate? It was unlike anything you’ve ever known, wasn’t it? Listen to me! It is what I have been trying to tell you!’
They heard Torrent dismount, his moccasins thudding on the yielding, strangely soft ground. ‘Be quiet, both of you. Argue what happened later. Listen to the echoes-I think we are trapped inside a cavern.’
‘Well,’ said Setoc, carefully climbing to her feet. ‘There must be a way out.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because, there’s bats.’
‘But I have my damned horse! Cafal-take us somewhere else!’
‘I cannot.’
‘What?’
‘The power belonged to Talamandas. A binding of agreements, promises, with countless human gods. With Hood, Lord of Death. The Barghast gods are young, too young. I-I cannot even sense them. I am sorry, I do not know where we are.’
‘I am cursed to follow fools!’
Setoc flinched at the anguish in that shout. Poor Torrent. You just wanted to leave there, to ride out. Away. Your stupid sense of honour demanded you visit Tool. And now look…
No one spoke for a time, the only sounds their breathing and anxious snorts from the horse. Setoc sought to sense some flow of air, but there was nothing. Her thigh aching, she sank back down. She then chose a direction at random and crawled. The guano thickened so that her hands plunged through up to her wrists, and then she found a stone barrier. Wiping the mess from her hands, she tracked with her fingers. ‘Wait! These stones are set-I’ve found a wall.’
Scrabbling sounds behind her, and then the scratch of flint and iron. Sparks, actinic flashes, and then a burgeoning glow. Moments later Torrent had a taper lit and was setting the flame to the wick of a small camp lantern. The chamber took shape around them.
The entire cavern was constructed of set stones, the ones overhead massive, wedged in place in seemingly precipitous disorder. In seething patches here and there clung bats, chittering and squeaking now in agitation.
‘Look, there!’ Cafal pointed.
The bats were converging on a conjoining of ill-set stones, wriggling into cracks.
‘There’s the way out.’
Torrent’s laugh was bitter. ‘We are entombed. One day, looters will break in, find the bones of two men, a child, and a damned horse. For us to ride into the deathworld, or so they might think. Then again, they might wonder at the gnaw marks on all but one set of bones, and at the scratchings and gougings on the stone. Tiny bat bones and heaps of dried-out scat…’
‘Crush that imagination of yours, Torrent,’ advised Cafal. ‘Though the way out is nothing but cracks, we know the world outside is close. We need only dig our way out.’
‘This is a stone barrow or something much like it, Cafal. If we start dragging stones loose the whole thing is likely to come down on us.’
‘We have no choice.’ He walked over to the wall where the bats had swarmed through moments earlier. Drawing a dagger, he began probing. A short time later, Torrent joined him, using his hunter’s knife.
To the sounds of scraping and sifting earth, Setoc sat down closer to the lantern. Memories of that white fire haunted her. Her head ached as if the heat had seared parts of her brain, leaving blank patches that pulsed behind her eyes. She could hear no muted howls-the Wolves were lost to her in this place. What world have we found? What waits beyond these stone walls? Does a sun shine out there? Does it blaze with death, or is this a realm for ever dark, lifeless?
Well, someone built this place. But… if this is indeed a barrow, where are the bones? She picked up the lantern, wincing at the hot handle which had not been tilted to one side. Gingerly rising, she played the light over the damp, mottled ground at her feet. Guano, a few stones dislodged from above. If there had ever been a body interred in this place, it had long since rotted down to crumbs. And it had not been adorned with jewellery; no buckles nor clasps to evince clothing of any sort. ‘This,’ she ventured, ‘is probably thousands of years old. There’s nothing left of whoever was buried here.’
A muted mutter from Torrent, answered by a grunt from Cafal, who then glanced back at her. ‘Where we’re digging, Setoc-someone has been through this way before. If this is a barrow, it’s been long since looted, emptied out.’
‘Since when does loot include the corpse itself?’
‘The guano is probably acidic,’ Cafal said. ‘It probably dissolved the bones. The point is, we can dig our way out and it’s not likely everything will collapse down on us-’
‘Don’t be so certain of that,’ Torrent said. ‘We need to make a hole big enough to get my horse out. The looters had no need to be so ambitious.’
‘You had best prepare yourself for the notion of killing your mount,’ Cafal said.
‘No. She is an Awl horse. The last Awl horse, and she is mine-no, we belong to each other. Both alone. If she must die, then I will die with her. Let this barrow be our home in the deathworld.’
‘You have a morbid cast of mind,’ Cafal said.
‘He has earned the right,’ Setoc murmured, still scanning the ground as she walked a slow circuit. ‘Ah!’ She bent down, retrieved a small, half-encrusted object. ‘A coin. Copper.’ She scraped the green disk clean and held it close to the lantern. ‘I recognize nothing-not Letherii, nor Bolkando.’
Cafal joined her. ‘Permit me, Setoc. My clan was in the habit of collecting coins to make our armour. It was his damned hauberk of coins that dragged my father to the sea bottom.’
She handed it to him.
He studied it for a long time, one side, then the other, over and over. And finally sighed and handed it back. ‘No. Some empress, I imagine, looking so regal. The crossed swords on the other side could be Seven Cities, but the writing is all wrong. This is not our world, Setoc.’
‘I didn’t think it was.’
‘Done with that, Cafal?’ Torrent asked from where he worked at the wall, impatience giving an edge to his tone.
Cafal offered her a wry smile and then returned to Torrent’s side.
A loud scrape followed by a heavy thud, and cool dew-heavy air flowed into the chamber.
‘Smell that? It’s a damned forest.’
At Cafal’s words, Setoc joined them. She held up the lantern. Night, cool… cooler than the Awl’dan. ‘Trees,’ she said, peering at the ragged boles faintly visible in the light.
There was possibly a bog out there-she could hear frogs.
‘If it was night,’ Torrent wondered, ‘what were the bats doing inside here?’
‘Perhaps it was only nearing dusk when we arrived. Or dawn is but moments away.’ Cafal tugged at another stone. ‘Help me with this one,’ he said to Torrent. ‘It’s too heavy for one man-Setoc, please, stand back, give us room.’
As they dragged the huge stone free, other rough-hewn boulders tumbled down. A large lintel stone ground its way loose and both men leapt back as it crashed on to the rubble. Clouds of dust billowed and a terrible grating groan sounded from the barrow’s ceiling.
Coughing, Cafal waved at Setoc. ‘Quickly! Out!’
She scrambled over the stones, eyes stinging, and staggered outside. Three paces and then she turned about. She heard the thump of stones from the ceiling. The horse shrilled in pain. From the gaping entrance Cafal appeared, followed a moment later by Torrent, who had somehow brought his mount down on to its knees. He held the reins and with rapid twitches on them he urged his horse forward. Its head thrust into view, eyes flashing in the reflected lantern light.
Setoc had never before seen a horse crawl-she had not thought it even possible, but here this mare was lurching through the gap, sheathed in dust and streaks of sweat. More rocks tumbled behind the beast and she squealed in pain, lunging, forelimbs scrabbling as she lifted herself up from the front end.
Moments after the animal finally lumbered clear the moss-humped roof of the barrow collapsed in thunder and dust. Decades-old trees that had grown upon it toppled in a thrash of branches and leaves. Wood splintered.
Blood streamed from the mare’s haunches. Torrent had calmed the beast once more and was tending to the gashes. ‘Not so bad,’ he muttered. ‘Had she broken a hip…’
Setoc saw that the warrior was trembling. This bond he had forged with his hapless mare stood in place of all those ties that had been so cruelly severed from his young life, and it was fast becoming something monstrous. ‘If she must die, then I will die with her.’ Madness, Torrent. It’s a damned horse, a dumb beast with its spirit broken by bit and rein. If she’d a broken hip or leg, we’d eat well this day.
She watched Cafal observing the Awl for a time, before he turned away and scanned the forest surrounding them. Then he lifted his eyes to the heavens. ‘No moons,’ he said. ‘And the stars seem… hazy-there’s not enough of them. No constellations I recognize.’
‘There are no wolves here.’
He faced her.
‘Their ghosts, yes. But… none living. They last ran here centuries past. Centuries.’
‘Well, there’s deer scat and trails-so they didn’t starve to death.’
‘No. Hunted.’ She hugged herself. ‘Tell me the mind of those who would kill every last wolf, who would choose to never again hear their mournful howls, or to see-with a shiver-a pack standing proud on a rise. Great Warlock, explain this to me, for I do not understand.’
He shrugged. ‘We hate rivals, Setoc. We hate seeing the knowing burn in their eyes. You have not seen civilized lands. The animals go away. And they never return. They leave silence, and that silence is filled with the chatter of our kind. Given the ability, we kill even the night.’ His eyes fell to the lantern in her hand.
Scowling, she doused it.
In the sudden darkness, Torrent cursed. ‘That does not help, wolf-child. We light fires, but the darkness remains-in our minds. Cast light within and you will not like what you see.’
A part of her wanted to weep. For the ghosts. For herself. ‘We need to find a way home.’
Cafal sighed. ‘There is power here. Unfamiliar. Even so, perhaps I can make use of it. I sense it… fragmented, shredded. It has, I think, not been used in a long, long time.’ He looked round. ‘I must clear a space. Sanctify it.’
‘Even without Talamandas?’ Torrent asked.
‘He would have been of little help here,’ Cafal replied. ‘His bindings all severed.’ He glanced at Setoc. ‘You, wolf-child, can help.’
‘How?’
‘Summon the wolf ghosts.’
‘No.’ The thought made her feel wretched. ‘I can give them nothing in return.’
‘Perhaps, a way through. Into another world, even our own, where they will find living kin, where they will run unseen shoulder to shoulder with them, and remember the hunt, old loyalties, sparks of love.’
She eyed him. ‘Is such a thing possible?’
‘I don’t know. But, let us try. I do not like this world. Even in this forest, the air is tainted. Foul. We have most of the night ahead of us. Let us do what we can to be gone before the sun rises. Before we are discovered.’
‘Sanctify your ground, then,’ Setoc said.
She walked off into the wood, sat down upon the mossy trunk of a fallen tree-no, a tree that had been cut down, cleanly-no axe could have managed such level precision. Why then had it been simply left here? ‘There is madness here,’ she whispered. Closing her eyes, she sought to drive the bleak thoughts away.
Ghosts! Wolves! Listen to my mind’s howl! Hear the sorrow, the anger! Hear my promise-I will guide you from this infernal realm. I will find you kin. Kin of hot blood, warm fur, the cry of newborn pups, the snarl of rival males-I will show you grasslands, my children. Vistas unending!
And she felt them, the beasts that had fallen in pain and grief here in this very forest, so long, long ago. The first to come to her was the last survivor of that time, the last to be cornered and viciously slain. She heard the echo of snarling hounds, the cries of human voices. She felt the wolf’s terror, its despair, its helpless bemusement. She felt, as well, as the beast’s lifeblood spilled into the churned-up soil, its surrender, its understanding-in that final moment-that its terrible loneliness was at last coming to an end.
And her mind howled anew, a silent cry that nevertheless sent rooks thrashing from tree branches in raucous flight. That froze deer and hares in their tracks, as some ancient terror within them was stirred to life.
Howls answered her. Closing from all sides.
Come to me! Gather all that remains of your power!
She could hear thrashing in the brush, as will and memory alone bulled through the bracken. And she sensed, with a shock, more than one species. Some dark, black-furred and low to the ground, eyes blazing yellow; others tall at the shoulders, rangy, with ebon-tipped silver fur. And she saw their ancestors, even larger beasts, short-nosed, massively muscled.
They came in multitudes beyond comprehension, and each bore their death wounds, the shafts of spears jutting from throat and flank, blood-gushing punctures streaming from chest. Snares and traps clanking and dragging from broken limbs. Bloated from poison-she saw, with mounting horror, a legacy of such hateful, spiteful slaughter that she cried out, a shriek tearing at her own throat.
Torrent was shouting, fighting to control his panicked horse as wolf ghosts flooded in, thousands, hundreds of thousands-this was an old world, and here, before her, crowding close with need, was the toll amassed by its insane victors, its triumphant tyrants.
Oh, there were other creatures as well, caught in the rushing tide, beasts long since crumbled to dust. She saw stags, bhederin, large cats. She saw huge furred beasts with broad heads and horns jutting from black snouts-so many, gods, so many-
‘Setoc! Stop! The power-it is too great-it overwhelms!’
But she had lost all control. She had not expected anything like this. The pressure, crushing in from all sides now, threatened to destroy her. She wept like the last child on earth, the last living thing, sole witness to the legacy of all that her kind had achieved. This desolation. This suicidal victory over nature itself.
‘Setoc!’
All at once she saw something glowing before her: a portal, pathetically small, nothing more than a bolt-hole. She raised a trembling hand and pointed towards it. ‘My loved ones,’ she whispered, ‘the way through. Make it bigger.’
They had wandered far beyond the chamber of slaughter, where scores of K’Chain Che’Malle had seemingly been sacrificed. Lanterns cast fitful light against metal entrails embedded in niches along the walls of the corridors, and from the ceiling thick cables sagged, dripping some kind of viscous oil. The air was rank with acidic vapours, making their eyes water. Side passages opened to rooms crowded with strange, incomprehensible machinery, the floor slick with spilled oils.
Taxilian led the others in their exploration, wending ever deeper into the maze of wide, low-ceilinged corridors. Moving a step behind him, Rautos could hear the man muttering, but he could not make out the words-he feared Taxilian might be going mad. This was an alien world, shaped by alien minds. Sense and understanding eluded them all, and from this was born fear.
Behind Rautos, almost on his heels, was Breath, coughing, gasping, as if her endless talk of drowning had thickened the air around her.
‘Tunnels!’ she hissed. ‘I hate tunnels. Pits, caves. Dark-always dark-rooms. Where is he leading us? We’ve passed countless ramps leading to higher levels-what is the fool looking for?’
Rautos had no answers, so he said nothing.
Behind Breath, Sheb and Nappet were bickering. Those two would come to blows soon; they were too much alike. Both vicious, both fundamentally amoral, both born betrayers. Rautos wished they would kill each other-they would not be missed.
‘Ah!’ cried Taxilian. ‘Found it!’
Rautos moved up to the man’s side. They stood at the threshold of a vast eight-walled chamber. A narrow ledge encircled it level with the passage they had just traversed. The actual floor was lost in darkness below. Taxilian edged out to the right, lifting his lantern.
The monstrous mechanism filling the centre of the expanse towered past level after level-only a few with balconies to match the one they were on-until it vanished high overhead. It seemed to be constructed entirely of metal, gleaming like brass and the purest iron, eight cylinders each the size of a city tower. Spigots jutted out from bolted collars that fastened the segments every second level, and attached to these were black, pliant ropes of some sort that reached out like the strands of an abandoned spider’s web, converging on huge boxes of metal affixed to the walls. Peering downward, Rautos could just make out a change in the configuration of the towers, as if each one sat upon a beehive dome.
His gaze caught and held upon one piece of metal, bent so perfectly between two fittings, and he frowned as if silts had been brushed from some deeply submerged memory. He groped towards it, fighting back a whimper, and then the blinding clouds returned, and he was swept away once more. He reeled and would have fallen from the ledge had not Breath roughly pulled him back.
‘Idiot! Do you want to kill yourself?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry. Thank you.’
‘Don’t bother. I acted on instinct. If I’d thought about it, I probably would have let you go. You’re nothing to me, fat old man. Nothing. No one is, not here, not one of you.’
She had raised her voice to make certain everyone else heard her last words.
Sheb snorted. ‘Bitch needs a lesson or two, I think.’
Breath spun to face him. ‘Hungry for a curse, are you? What part of your body do you want to rot off first? Maybe I’ll do the choosing-’
‘Set your magic on me, woman, and I will throttle you.’
She laughed, turned away. ‘Play with Asane if you have the need.’
Rautos, after a few deep, calming breaths, set out after Taxilian, who had begun walking round the ledge, eyes fixed on the edifice.
‘It’s an engine,’ he said when Rautos drew close.
‘A what? As in a mill? But I see nothing like gears or-’
‘Like that, yes. You can hide gears and levers inside, in housings to keep them clean of grit and whatnot. Even more relevantly, you can seal things and make use of alternating pressures, and so move things from one place to another. It’s a common practice in alchemy, especially if one conjures such pressures using heat and cold. I once saw a sorcerous invention that could draw the ether out of a glass jar, thus quenching the lit candle within it. A pump bound in wards was used to draw out the life force that exists in the air.’ He waved one hand at the towers. ‘Heat, cold-I think these are vast pressure chambers of some sort.’
‘For what purpose?’
Taxilian looked at him with glittering eyes. ‘That’s what I mean to find out.’
There were no ladders or bridges across to the towers. Taxilian led him back to the entranceway. ‘We’re going up now,’ he said.
‘We need food,’ said Last, his expression worried, frightened. ‘We could get lost in here-’
‘Stop whimpering,’ growled Nappet. ‘I could walk us out of here in no time.’
‘None of you,’ cut in Asane, startling everyone, ‘wants to talk about what we found in the first room. That’s what you’re all running from. Those-those monsters-they were all slaughtered.’ She glared at them, diffident, and rushed on. ‘What killed them could still be here! We don’t know anything about any of this-’
‘Those monsters didn’t die in battle,’ said Sheb. ‘That was a ritual killing we saw. Sacrifices, that’s what they were.’
‘Maybe they had no choice.’
Sheb snorted. ‘I can’t think of many beasts choosing to be sacrificed. Of course they had no choice. This place is abandoned-you can feel it. Smell it in the stale air.’
‘When we climb higher,’ said Last, ‘we’ll get out of the wet, and we can see if there’s tracks in the dust.’
‘Gods below, the farmer’s good for something after all,’ said Nappet with a hard grin.
‘Let’s go, then,’ said Taxilian, and he set off. Once more the others fell in behind him.
Drifting between all of them, voiceless, half-blinded with sorrow that swept down like curtains of rain, the ghost yearned to reach through. To Taxilian, Rautos, even stolid, slow-thinking Last. In their journey through the bowels of the Dragon Keep, knowledge had erupted, thunderous, pounding concussions that sent him reeling.
He knew this place. He knew its name. Kalse Rooted. A demesne of the K’Chain Che’Malle, a border keep. A vast body now drained of all life, a corpse standing empty-eyed on the plain. And he knew that a Shi’gal Assassin had slain those K’ell Hunters. To seal the failure of this fortress.
Defeat was approaching. The whispering chant, the song of scales. The great army sent out from here had been annihilated. Naught but a pathetic rearguard left behind. The J’an Sentinels would have taken the Matron away, to the field of the fallen, there to entomb her for evermore.
Taxilian! Hear me. What is lifeless is not necessarily dead. That which falls can rise again. Take care-take great care-in this place…
But his cries were not heard. He was trapped outside, made helpless with all that he understood, with this cascade of secrets that could do little more than tumble into an abyss of ignorance.
He knew how Asane railed in her own mind, how she longed to escape her own flesh. She wanted out from all that had failed her. Her damned flesh, her dying organs, her very mind. She had been awakened to the comprehension that the body was a prison, but one prone to terrible, inexorable decay. Oh, there was always that final flight, when the corroded bars ceased to pose a barrier; when the soul was free to fly, to wing out in search of unseen shores. But with that release-for all she knew-all that she called herself would be lost. Asane would end. Cease, and that which was born from the ashes held no regard for the living left behind, no regard for that world of aches, pain, and suffering. It was transformed into indifference, and all that was past-all that belonged to the mortal life now done-meant nothing to it; she could not comprehend such a cruel rebirth.
She longed for death none the less. Longed to escape her withered husk with all its advancing decrepitude, its sundering into the pathos of the broken. Fear alone held her back-back from that ledge in the eight-sided chamber, back from that fatal drop to some unseen floor far below. And that same fear clawed at her now. Demons stalked this keep. She dreaded what was coming.
Walking a step behind her was Last, aptly choosing a rearguard position. His shoulders were hunched, head ducked as if the corridor’s ceiling were much lower than it was. He was a man born to open spaces, boundless skies overhead, the sweep of vistas. Within this haunted maze, he felt diminished, almost crippled. Vertigo lunged at him with each turn and twist. He saw how the walls closed in. He felt the mass looming over them all, the unbearable weight of countless storeys overhead.
He had a sudden memory of his childhood. He had been helping his father-before the debts arrived, before everything was taken away that meant anything at all-he had been helping his father, he recalled, dismantle a shed behind the stables. They had prised loose the warped planks and were stacking them in a disordered heap this side of the pen’s fence. Finishing a task begun months earlier, before the planting. By late afternoon the shed was down, and his father had told him to rearrange the boards, sorting them by length and condition.
He had set to the task. Recollection grew hazy then, up until the moment he lifted a grey, weathered plank-one from last season’s work-and saw how its recent shifting from the day’s work just done had crushed a nest of mice, the woven bundle of grasses flattened, smeared in a tangle of blood and tiny entrails. Hairless, pink pups scattered about, crushed, each one yielding up their single drop of lifeblood. Both parents suffocated beneath the weight of the overburden.
Kneeling before this tableau, his presence looming like a god come too late, he stared down at this destroyed family. Silly to weep, of course. There were plenty of other mice-Errant knew the yard’s cats stayed fat. So, foolish, these tears.
Yes, he’d been just a child. A sensitive age, no doubt. And later that night his father took him by the hand and led him out to the modest barrow on the old plot, continuing what had been their the post-supper ritual ever since his mother was put into the ground, and they burned knotted hoops of wrinkle grass with their dried blossoms that flared bright the instant flames touched them. Bursts of fire that blotted the eyes with pulsing afterglows. And when his father saw the tears on his son’s cheeks he drew him close and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for that.’
Yes, the levels above seemed well built, the walls solid and sturdy. No reason to think it would all come down at the careless toss of some child god. These kinds of thoughts, well, they could only make a man angry. In ways every child would understand.
He walked with his huge hands balled into fists.
Sheb was fairly certain that he had died in prison, or come close enough to dead that the cell cutter simply ordered the bearers to carry him out to the lime pits, and they spilled him down on to a bed of dusted corpses. Searing pain from the lime had roused him from his fevered oblivion, and he must have climbed his way out, pushed through the bodies that had been dumped on top of him.
He recalled struggling. Vast, unshifting weights. He recalled even thinking that he had failed. That he was too weak, that he would never get free. He even remembered seeing swaths of red, blistered skin on his arms, sloughing away in his frenzied thrashing. And a nightmare instant where he gouged out his own burning eyes to bring an end to their agony.
Mad delusions, of course. He had won free. Had he not, would he be alive now? Walking at Nappet’s side? No, he had cheated them all. Those Hivanar agents who brought the embezzlement charges against him, the advocates who bribed him out of the Drownings (where, he knew, he would have survived), seeing him instead sent to the work camps. Ten years’ hard labour-no one survived that.
Except me. Sheb the unkillable. And one day, Xaranthos Hivanar, I will come back to steal the rest of your wealth. I still know what I know, don’t I? And you will pay to keep me quiet. And this time round I won’t get careless. I’ll see your corpse lying in a pauper’s pit. I swear it before the Errant himself. I swear it!
Walking at Sheb’s side, Nappet held on to his cold, hard grin. He knew Sheb wanted to be the bully in this crowd. The man had a viper’s heart, a stony knuckle of a thing, beating out venom in turgid spurts. One of these nights, he vowed, he’d throw the fool on his back and give him the old snake-head where it counted.
Sheb had been in a Letherii prison-Nappet was certain of it. His habits, his manners, his skittish way of moving-they told him all he needed to know about ratty little Sheb. He’d been used and used well in those cells. Calluses on the knees. Fish Breath. Slick cheeks. There were plenty of names for men like him.
Sheb had got it enough to start liking it, and all this bitching back and forth between Nappet and Sheb, well, that was just seeing who’d be the first one doing the old cat stretch.
Four years’ back-breaking quarrying up near Bluerose. That had been Nappet’s sentence for that little gory mess back in Letheras, the sister’s husband who’d liked throwing the frail thing around-well, no brother was going to let that just sidle past. No brother worth anything.
The only damned shame was that he hadn’t managed to kill the bastard. Close, though. Enough broken bones so that the man had trouble sitting up, never mind stalking the house breaking things and hitting defenceless women.
Not that she’d been grateful. Family loyalty only went one way, it turned out. He forgave her quick enough for ratting on him. She’d walked in on a messy scene, after all. Screams aplenty. Her poor mind was confused-she’d never been very sharp to begin with. If she had been, why, she’d never have married that nub-nosed swaggering turd in the first place.
Anyway, Nappet knew he’d get Sheb sooner or later. So long as Sheb understood that between them he was the man in charge. And he knew that Sheb would want it rough, at least to start with, so he could look outraged, wounded and all that. The two of them, they’d played in the same yard, after all.
Breath stumbled and Nappet shoved her forward. ‘Stupid woman. Frail and stupid, that’s what you are, like every other woman. Almost as bad as the hag back there. You got a swamp drying out in that blonde hair, did you know that? You stink of the swamp-not that we been through one.’
She shot him a glare, before hurrying on.
Breath could smell mud. Its stench seemed to ooze from her pores. Nappet was right in that, but that didn’t stop her thinking about ways to kill him. If not for Taxilian, and maybe Last, he and Sheb would have raped her by now. Once or twice, to convince her about who was in charge. After that, she knew, they’d be happy enough with each other.
She’d been told a story, once, although she could not recall who had told it to her, or where they had been. It was a tale about a girl who was a witch, though she didn’t know it yet. She was a seer of the Tiles long before she saw her first Tile. A gift no one thought to even look for in this small, wheat-haired child.
Even before her first bloodflow, men had been after her. Not the tall grey-skinned ones, though the girl feared them the most-for reasons never explained-but men living in the same place as her. Letherii. Slaves, yes, slaves, just like she’d been. That girl. That witch.
And there was one man, maybe the only one among them all, who did not look on her with hunger. No, in his eyes there had been love. That real thing, that genuine thing that girls dreamed of finding. But he was lowborn. He was nothing. A mender of nets, a man whose red hands shed fish scales when he returned from his day’s work.
The tragedy was this, then. The girl had not yet found her Tiles. Had she done so early enough, she would have taken that man to her bed. She would have made him her first man. So that what was born between her legs was not born in pain. So that it would not become so dark in its delicious desires.
Before the Tiles, then, she had given herself to other men, unloving men. She’d given herself over to be used.
The same men who then in turn gave her a new name, one born of the legend of the White Crow, who once offered the gift of flight to humans, in the form of a single feather. And, urged on by promises, men would grasp hold of that feather and seek to fly. Only to fall to their deaths. With the crow laughing as they fell. Crows needed to eat just like everything else, after all.
‘I am the White Crow, and I will feed on your dreams. And feed well.’
They called her Feather, for the promise she offered, and never delivered. Had she found the Tiles, Breath was certain, she would have been given a different name. That little blonde girl. Whoever she was.
Rautos, who had yet to discover his family name, was thinking of his wife. Trying to recall something of their lives together, something other than the disgusting misery of their last years.
A man does not marry a girl, nor a woman. He marries a promise, and it shines with a bright purity that is ageless. It shines, in other words, with the glory of lies. The deception is self-inflicted. The promise was simple in its form, as befitted the thick-headedness of young men, and in its essence it offered the delusion that the present moment was eternal; that nothing would change; not the fires of desire, not the flesh itself, not the intense look in the eye.
Now here he was, at the far end of a marriage-where she was at this moment he had no idea. Perhaps he’d murdered her. Perhaps, as was more likely given the cowardice in his soul, he had simply fled her. No matter. He could look back with appalling clarity now, and see how her dissolution had matched his own. They had each settled like a lump of wax, melting season by season, descending into something shapeless, something not even hinting at the forms they had once possessed. Smeared, sagging, two heaps of sour smells, chafed skin, groans born of fitful motion. Fools that they both were, they had not moved through the years hand in hand-no, they’d not possessed that wisdom, that ironic recognition of the inevitable.
Neither had mitigated their youthful desires with the limits imposed so cruelly by age. He had dreamed of finding a younger woman, someone nubile, soft, unblemished. She had longed for a tall, sturdy benefactor to soften her bedding with romance and delight her with the zealotry of the enchanted.
They had won nothing for all their desires except misery and loneliness. Like two burlap sacks filled with tarnished baubles, each squatting alone in its own room. In dust and cobwebs.
We stopped talking-no, be truthful, we never talked. Oh, past each other often enough in those early years. Yes, we talked past each other, avid and sharp, too humourless to be wry-fools that we were. Could we have learned how to laugh back then? So much might have turned out differently. So much…
Regrets and coin, the debt ever mounts.
This nightmarish keep was the perfect match to the frightening chaos in his mind. Incomprehensible workings, gargantuan machines, corridors and strange ramps leading upward to the next levels, mysteries on all sides. As if… as if Rautos was losing his sense of himself, was losing talents he had long taken for granted. How could knowledge collapse so quickly? What was happening to him? Could the mind sink into a formless, unstructured thing to match the flesh that held it?
Perhaps, he thought with a start, he had not fled at all. Instead, he was lying on his soft bed, eyes open but seeing nothing of the truth, whilst his soul wandered the maze of a broken brain. The thought horrified Rautos and he physically picked up his pursuit of Taxilian, until he trod on the man’s heel.
A glance back, brows raised.
Rautos mumbled an apology, wiped sweat from his jowly face.
Taxilian returned his attention to this steep ramp before him, and the landing he could now see ahead and above. The air was growing unbearably warm. He suspected there were chutes and vents that moved currents of warmth and cold throughout this alien city, but as yet he’d found none, not a single grated opening-and there were no draughts flowing past. If currents flowed in this air, they were so muted, so constrained, that human skin could not sense their whispering touch.
The city was dead, and yet it lived, it breathed, and somewhere a heart beat a slow syncopation, a heart of iron and brass, of copper and acrid oil. Valves and gears, rods and hinges, collars and rivets. He had found the lungs, and he knew that in one of the levels still awaiting them he would find the heart. Then, higher still, into the dragon’s skull, where slept the massive mind.
All his life, dreams had filled his thoughts, his inner world, that played as would a god, maker of impossible inventions, machines so complex, so vast, they would strike like bolts of lightning should a mortal mind suddenly comprehend them. Creations to carry people across great distances, swifter than any horse or ship. Others that could surround a human soul, preserve its every thought and sense, its very knowledge of itself-and keep it all safe beyond the failing of mortal flesh. Creations to end all hunger, all poverty, to crush avarice before it was born, to cast out cruelty and indifference, to defy every inequity and deny the lure of sadistic pleasure.
Moral constructs-oh, they were a madman’s dreams, to be sure. Humans insisted on others behaving properly, but rarely forced the same standards upon themselves. Justifications dispensed with logic, thriving on opportunism and delusions of pious propriety.
As a child he had heard tales of heroes, tall, stern-faced adventurers who claimed the banners of honour and loyalty, of truthfulness and integrity. And yet, as the tales spun out, Taxilian would find himself assailed by a growing horror, as the great hero slashed and murdered his way through countless victims, all in pursuit of whatever he (and the world) deemed a righteous goal. His justice was sharp, but it bore but one edge, and the effort of the victims to preserve their lives was somehow made sordid, even evil.
But a moral machine, ah, would it not be forced by mechanics alone to hold itself to the same standard it set upon every other sentient entity? Immune to hypocrisy, its rule would be absolute and absolutely just.
A young man’s dreams, assuredly. Such a machine, he now knew, would quickly conclude that the only truly just act was the thorough annihilation of every form of intelligent life in every realm known to it. Intelligence was incomplete-perhaps it always would be-it was flawed. It could not distinguish its own lies from its own truths. Upon the scale of the self, they often weighed the same. Mistakes and malice were arguments of intent alone, not effect.
There would always be violence, catastrophe, shortsighted stupidity, incompetence and belligerence. The meat of history, after all, was the flyblown legacy of such things.
And yet. And yet. The dragon is home to a city, the city that lives when not even echoes survive to walk its streets. Its very existence is a salutation.
Taxilian believed-well, he so wanted to believe-that he would discover an ancient truth in this place. He would come, yes, face to face with a moral construct. And as for Asane’s words earlier, her fretting on the slaughtered K’Chain Che’Malle in the first chamber, such a scene made sense now to Taxilian. The machine mind had come to its inevitable conclusion. It had delivered the only possible justice.
If only he could awaken it once more, perfection would return to the world.
Taxilian could sense nothing, of course, of the ghost’s horror at such notions. Justice without compassion was the destroyer of morality, a slayer blind to empathy.
Leave such things to nature, to the forces not even the gods can control. If you must hold to a faith, Taxilian, then hold to that one. Nature may be slow to act, but it will find a balance-and that is a process not one of us can stop, for it belongs to time itself.
And, the ghost now knew, he had a thing about time.
They came upon vast chambers crowded with vats in which grew fungi and a host of alien plants that seemed to need no light. They stumbled upon seething nests of scaled rats-orthen-that scattered squealing from the lantern’s harsh light.
Dormitories in rows upon rows, assembly halls and places of worship. Work stalls and low-ceilinged expanses given over to arcane manufacture-stacks of metal, each one identical, proof of frightening precision. Armouries bearing ranks of strange weapons, warehouses with stacked packages of foodstuffs, ice-rooms filled with butchered, frozen meat hanging from hooks. Niches in which were stored bolts of cloth, leather, and scaled hides. Rooms cluttered with gourds arranged on shelves.
A city indeed, awaiting them.
And still, Taxilian led them ever upward. Like a man possessed.
A riot had erupted. Armed camps of islanders raged back and forth along the shoreline, while mobs plunged into the forests, weapons slick and dripping, into the makeshift settlements, conducting pathetic looting and worse among the poorest refugees. Murder, rapes, and everywhere, flames lifting orange light into the air. Before dawn, the fires had ignited the forest, and hundreds more died in smoke and heat.
Yan Tovis had drawn her Shake down on to the stony shoreline, where numbers alone kept the worst of the killers at bay.
The ex-prisoners of Second Maiden Fort had not taken well the rumour-sadly accurate-that the Queen of Twilight was preparing to lead them into an unknown world, a realm of darkness, a road without end. That, if she failed and lost her way, would find them all abandoned, trapped for ever in a wasteland that had never known a sun’s light, a sun’s blessed warmth.
A few thousand islanders had taken refuge among the Shake. The rest, she knew, were busy dying or killing each other amidst grey smoke and raging flames. Standing facing the ravaged slope with its morbid tree-stumps and destroyed huts, her face smeared with ash and sweat, her eyes streaming from the smoke, Yan Tovis struggled to find her courage, her will to take command once more. She was exhausted, in her bones and in her soul. Waves of ash-filled heat gusted against her. Distant screams drifted through the air, cutting through the surly growl of the motley rabble edging ever closer.
Someone was pushing through the crowd behind her, snarling curses and dire warnings. A moment later, Skwish scrambled forward. ‘There’s near a thousand gulpin’ down o’er there, Queen. When they get their nerve, they’re gonna carve inta us-we got a line a ex-guards an’ the like betwixt ’em an’ us. You better do somethin’ and do it fast… Highness.’
She could hear renewed fighting, somewhere down the beach. Twilight frowned. Something about that sound… ‘Do you hear that?’ she asked the witch cowering at her side.
‘Wha?’
‘That’s an organized advance, Skwish.’ And she pushed past the old woman, making her way towards that steady clash of iron, the shouts of commands being given, the shrieks and cries of dying looters. Even in the uncertain flickering light from the forest fire, she could see how the mob was curling back-a wedge of Letherii soldiers was pushing through, drawing ever closer.
Twilight halted. Yedan Derryg. And his troop. My brother-damn him!
She saw her ex-guards shift uneasily as the wedge cut through the last looters. They did not know if the newcomers would attack them next-if they did, the poorly armed islanders would be cut to pieces. Twilight hurried, determined to throw herself between the two forces.
She heard Yedan snap an order, and saw the perfect precision of his thirty or so soldiers wheeling round, the wedge dispersing, flattening out to form a new line facing the churning crowd of looters, locking shields, drawing up their weapons.
The threat from that direction was now over. Actual numbers were irrelevant. Discipline among a few could defeat a multitude-that was Letherii doctrine, borne out in countless battles against wild tribes on the borderlands. Yan Tovis knew it as did her brother.
She pushed through her island guard, seeing the loose relief on the faces that swung to her, the sudden deliverance from certain death.
Yedan, blackened with soot and spatters of blood, must have seen her before she spied him, for he stepped into her path, lifting his helm’s cheek-guards, revealing his black beard, the bunching muscles of his jaw. ‘My Queen,’ he said. ‘Dawn fast approaches-the moment of the Watch is almost past-you will lose the darkness.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘I do not believe we can survive another day in this uprising.’
‘Of course we can’t, you infuriating bastard!’
‘The Road to Gallan, my Queen. If you will open the way, it must be now.’ He gestured with a gauntleted hand. ‘When they see the portal born, they will try for it-to escape the flames. To escape the retribution of the kingdom. You will have two thousand criminals rushing on your heels.’
‘And what is there to do about it?’ Even as she asked, she knew how he would answer. Knew, and wanted to scream.
‘Queen, my soldiers will hold the portal.’
‘And be slaughtered!’
He said nothing. Muscles knotted rhythmically beneath his beard.
‘Damn you! Damn you!’
‘Unveil the Road, my Queen.’
She spun to her two captains among the ex-prison guards. ‘Pithy. Brevity. Support Yedan Derryg’s soldiers-for as long as you can-but be sure not to get so entangled that your people cannot withdraw-I want you through the gate, do you understand?’
‘We shall do as you say, Highness,’ Brevity replied.
Yan Tovis studied the two women, wondering yet again why the others had elected them as their captains. They’d never been soldiers-anyone could see that. Damned criminals, in fact. Yet they could command. Shaking her head, she faced her brother once more.
‘Will you follow us?’
‘If we can, my Queen. But we must be certain to hold until we see the portalway failing.’ He paused, and then added with his usual terseness, ‘It will be close.’
Yan Tovis wanted to tear at her hair. ‘Then I begin-and,’ she hesitated, ‘I will talk to Pully and Skwish. I will-’
‘Do not defend what I have done, sister. The time to lead is now. Go, do what must be done.’
Gods, you pompous idiot.
Don’t die, damn you. Don’t you dare die!
She did not know if he heard her sob as she rushed away. He’d dropped his cheek-guards once more. Besides, those helms blunted all but the sharpest sounds.
The Road to Gallan. The road home. Ever leading me to wonder, why did we leave in the first place? What drove us from Gallan? The first shoreline? What so fouled the water that we could no longer live there?
She reached the ancient shell midden where she and the witches had sanctified the ground, climbed, achingly, raw with desperation, to join the pair of old witches.
Their eyes glittered, with madness or terror-she could never tell with these two hags.
‘Now?’ asked Pully.
‘Yes. Now.’
And Yan Tovis turned round. From her vantage point, she looked upon her cowering followers. Her people, crowded along the length of beach. Behind them the forest was a wall of fire. Ashes and smoke, a conflagration. This-this is what we leave. Remember that. From where she stood, she could not even see her brother.
No one need ever ask why we fled this world.
She whirled round, drawing her blessed daggers. And laid open her forearms. The gift of royal blood. To the shore.
Pully and Skwish screamed the Words of Sundering, their twisted hands grasping her wrists, soaking in her blood like leeches.
They should not complain. That but two remain. They will learn, I think, to thank my brother. When they see what royal blood gives them. When they see.
Darkness yawned. Impenetrable, a portal immune to the water that its lower end carved into.
The road home.
Weeping, Yan Tovis, Twilight, Queen of the Shake, pulled her arms loose from the witches’ grip, and lunged forward. Into the cold past.
Where none could hear her screams of grief.
The mob hesitated longer than Yedan expected, hundreds of voices crying out upon witnessing the birth of the portal, those cries turning to need and then anger as the Shake and the islanders among them plunged into the gate, vanishing-escaping this madness.
He stood with his troop, gauging the nearest of the rioters. ‘Captain Brevity,’ he called over a shoulder.
‘Watch.’
‘Do not tarry here. We will do what needs doing.’
‘We got our orders.’
‘I said we will hold.’
‘Sorry,’ the woman snapped. ‘We ain’t in the mood to watch you go all heroic here.’
‘Asides,’ added Pithy, ‘our lads couldn’t live with themselves if they just left you to it.’
A half-dozen voices loudly objected to her claim, to which both captains laughed.
Biting back a smile, Yedan said nothing. The mob was moments from rushing them-they were being pushed from behind. It was always this way, he knew. Someone else’s courage, so boisterous in its refuge among walls of flesh, so easy with someone else’s life. He could see, in heaving eddies, the worst of them, and set their details in his mind, to test their courage when at last he came face to face with each one.
‘Wake up, soldiers,’ he shouted. ‘Here they come.’
The first task in driving back a charging mob was two quick steps forward, right into the faces of the foremost attackers. Cut them down, pull back a single stride, and hold fast. As the survivors were thrust forward once more, repeat the aggression, messy and brutal, and this time advance into the teeth of the crowd, blades chopping, stabbing, shield rims slamming into bodies, studded heels crunching down on those that fell underfoot.
The nearest ranks recoiled from the assault.
Then retaliated, rising like a wave.
Yedan and his troop delivered fierce slaughter. Held for twenty frantic heartbeats, and then were driven back one step, and then another. Better-armed looters began appearing, thrust to the forefront. The first Letherii soldier fell, stabbed through a thigh. Two of Brevity’s guards hurried forward and pulled the man from the line, a cutter rushing in to staunch the wound with clumps of spider’s web.
Pithy shouted from a position directly behind Yedan: ‘More than half through, Watch!’
The armed foes that fell to his soldiers either reeled back or collapsed at their feet. These latter ones gave up the weapons they held to more of the two captains’ guards, who reached through quick as cats to snatch them away before the attackers could recover them. The two women were busy arming others to bolster their rearguard-Yedan could imagine no other reason for the risky-and, truth be told, irritating-tactic.
His soldiers were tiring-it had been some time since they’d last worn full armour. He’d been slack in keeping them fit. Too much riding, not enough marching. When had any of them last drawn blood? The Edur invasion for most of them.
They were paying for it now. Ragged gasps, slowing arms, stumbles.
‘Back one step!’
The line edged back-
‘Now forward! Hard!’
The mob had seen that retreat as a victory, the beginnings of a rout. The sudden attack into their faces shocked them, their weapons unreadied, their minds on everything but defence. That front line melted, as did the one behind it, and then a third. Yedan and his soldiers-knowing that this was their last push-fought like snarling beasts.
And all at once, the hundreds crowding before them suddenly scattered-the rough ranks shattering. Weapons thrown aside, fleeing as fast as legs could carry them, down the strand, out into the shallows. Scores were trampled, driven into mud or stones or water. Fighting broke out in desperate efforts to clear paths through.
Yedan withdrew his troop. They staggered back to the waiting rearguard-who looked upon them in silence, perhaps disbelieving.
‘Attend to the wounded,’ barked Yedan, lifting his cheek grilles to cool his throbbing face, snatching in deep breaths.
‘We can get moving now,’ Brevity said, tugging at his shield arm. ‘We can just walk on through to… wherever. You, Watch, you need to be in charge of the Shake army, did you know that?’
‘The Shake have no army-’
‘They better get one and soon.’
‘Besides, I am an outlaw-I slaughtered-’
‘We know what you did. You’re an Errant-damned up-the-wall madman, Yedan Derryg. Best kinda commander an army could have.’
Pithy said, ‘Leave the petitioning to us, sweetie.’ And she smiled.
He looked round. One wounded. None dead. None dead that counted, anyway. Screams of pain rose from the killing field. He paid that no attention, simply sheathed his sword.
When Yedan Derryg walked into the fading portalway-the last of them all-he did not look back. Not once.
There was great joy in discarding useless words. Although one could not help but measure each day by the sun’s fiery passage through the empty sky, and each night by the rise and set of a haze-shrouded moon and the jade slashes cutting across the starscape, the essential meaning of time had vanished from Badalle’s mind. Days and nights were a tumbling cavort, round and round with no beginning and no end. Jaws to tail. They rolled on and left nothing but a scattering of motionless small figures collapsed on to the plain. Even the ribbers had abandoned them.
Here, at the very edge of the Glass, there were only the opals-fat carrion beetles migrating in from the blasted, lifeless flanks to either side of the trail. And the diamonds-glittering spiked lizards that sucked blood from the fingertips their jaws clamped tight round every night-diamonds becoming rubies as they grew engorged. And there were the Shards, the devouring locusts sweeping down in glittering storms, stripping children almost where they stood, leaving behind snarls of rags, tufts of hair and pink bones.
Insects and lizards ruled this scorched realm. Children were interlopers, invaders. Food.
Rutt had tried to lead them round the Glass, but there was no way around that vast blinding desert. A few of them gathered after the second night. They had been walking south, and at this day’s end they had found a sinkhole filled with bright green water. It tasted of limestone dust and made many children writhe in pain, clutching their stomachs. It made a few of them die.
Rutt sat holding Held, and to his left crouched Brayderal-the tall bony girl who reminded Badalle of the Quitters. She had pushed her way in, and for that Badalle did not like her, did not trust her, but Rutt turned no one away. Saddic was there as well, a boy who looked upon Badalle with abject adoration. It was disgusting, but he listened best to her poems, her sayings, and he could repeat them back to her, word for word. He said he was collecting them all. To one day make a book. A book of this journey. He believed, therefore, that they were going to survive this, and that made him a fool.
The four of them had sat, and in the silences that stretched out and round and in and through and sometimes between them all, they pondered what to do next. Words weren’t needed for that kind of conversation. And no one had the strength for gestures, either. Badalle thought that Saddic’s book should hold vast numbers of blank pages, to mark such silences and all they contained. The truths and the lies, the needs and the wants. The nows and the thens, the theres and the heres. If she saw such pages, and could crisp back each one, one after another, she would nod, remembering how it was. How it was.
It was Brayderal who stained the first blank page. ‘We got to go back.’
Rutt lifted his bloodshot eyes. He drew Held tighter against his chest. Adjusted the tattered hood, reached in a lone finger to stroke an unseen cheek.
That was his answer, and Badalle agreed with him. Yes she did. Stupid, dangerous Brayderal.
Who scratched a bit at the sores encrusting her nostrils. ‘We can’t go round it. We can only cross it. But crossing it means we all die and die bad. I’ve heard of this Glass Desert. Never crossed. No one ever crosses it. It goes on for ever, straight down the throat of the setting sun.’
Oh, Badalle liked that one. That was a good scene to keep alive in her head. Down the throat, a diamond throat, a throat of glass, sharp, so very sharp glass. And they were the snake. ‘We got thick skin,’ she said, since the page was already ruined. ‘We go down the throat. We go down it, because that’s what snakes do.’
‘Then we die.’
They all gave her silence for that. To say such things! To blot the page that way! They gave her silence. For that.
Rutt turned his head. Rutt set his eyes upon the Glass Desert. He stared that way a long, long time, as darkness quenched the glittering flats. And then he finished his looking, and he leaned forward and rocked Held to sleep. Rocked and rocked.
So it was decided. They were going into the Glass Desert.
Brayderal took a blank page for herself. She had thousands to choose from.
Badalle crawled off, trailed by Saddic, and she sat staring into the night. She threw away words. There. Here. Then. Now. When. Everybody had to cut what they carried, to cross this desert. Toss away what wasn’t needed. Even poets.
‘You have a poem,’ Saddic said, a dark shape beside her. ‘I want to hear it.’
‘I am throwing away
Words. You and me
Is a good place to start
Yesterday I woke up
With five lizards
Sucking my fingers
Like tiny pigs or rat pups
They drank down
You and me
I killed two of them
And ate what they took
But that wasn’t taking back
The words stayed gone
We got to lighten the load
Cut down on what we carry
Today I stop carrying
You
Tomorrow I stop carrying
Me.’
After a time of no words, Saddic stirred. ‘I’ve got it, Badalle.’
‘To go with the silent pages.’
‘The what?’
‘The blank ones. The ones that hold everything that’s true. The ones that don’t lie about anything. The silent pages, Saddic.’
‘Is that another poem?’
‘Just don’t put it on a blank page.’
‘I won’t.’
He seemed strangely satisfied, and he curled up tight against her hip, like a ribber when ribbers weren’t ribbers but pets, and he went to sleep. She looked down on him, and thought about eating his arms.
CLOTHES REMAIN
FISHER
I’m stuffed,’ said King Tehol, and then, with a glance at his guest, added, ‘Sorry.’
Captain Shurq Elalle regarded him with her crystal goblet halfway to her well-padded, exquisitely painted lips. ‘Yet another swollen member at my table.’
‘Actually,’ observed Bugg, ‘this is the King’s table.’
‘I wasn’t being literal,’ she replied.
‘Which is a good thing,’ cried Tehol, ‘since my wife happens to be sitting right here beside me. And though she has no need to diet, we’d all best stay figurative.’ And his eyes shifted nervously before he hid himself behind his own goblet.
‘Just like old times,’ said Shurq. ‘Barring the awkward pauses, the absurd opulence, and the weight of an entire kingdom pressing down upon us. Remind me to decline the next invitation.’
‘Longing for a swaying deck under your feet?’ Tehol asked. ‘Oh, how I miss the sea-’
‘How can you miss what you’ve never experienced?’
‘Well, good point. I should have been more precise. I miss the false memory of missing a life on the sea. It was, at the risk of being coarse, my gesture of empathy.’
‘I don’t really think the captain’s longings should be the subject of conversation, husband,’ Queen Janath said, mostly under her breath.
Shurq heard her none the less. ‘Highness, this night has made it grossly obvious that you hold to an unreasonable prejudice against the dead. If I was still alive I’d be offended.’
‘No you wouldn’t.’
‘In a gesture of empathy, indeed I would!’
‘Well, I do apologize,’ said the Queen. ‘I just find your, uh, excessively overt invitations to be somewhat off-putting-’
‘My excessively overt what? It’s called make-up! And clothes!’
‘More like dressing the feast,’ murmured Janath.
Tehol and Bugg shared a wince.
Shurq Elalle smirked. ‘Jealousy does not become a queen-’
‘Jealousy? Are you mad?’
The volume of the exchange was escalating. ‘Yes, jealousy! I’m not getting any older and that fact alone-’
‘Not any older, true enough, just more and more… putrid.’
‘No less putrid than your unseemly bigotry! And all I need do by way of remedy is a bag full of fresh herbs!’
‘That’s what you think.’
‘Not a single man’s ever complained. I bet you can’t say the same.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Shurq Elalle then chose the most vicious reply of all. She said nothing. And took another delicate mouthful of wine.
Janath stared, and then turned on her husband.
Who flinched.
In a tight, low voice, Janath asked, ‘Dear husband, do I fail in pleasing you?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Am I the subject of private conversations between you and this-this creature?’
‘Private? You, her? Not at all!’
‘Oh, so what then is the subject of those conversations?’
‘No subject-’
‘Too busy to talk, then, is it? You two-’
‘What? No!’
‘Oh, there’s always time for a few explicit instructions. Naturally.’
‘I don’t-we don’t-’
‘This is insane,’ snapped Shurq Elalle. ‘When I can get a man like Ublala Pung why should I bother with Tehol here?’
The King vigorously nodded, and then frowned.
Janath narrowed her gaze on the undead captain. ‘Am I to understand that my husband is not good enough for you?’
Bugg clapped his hands and rose. ‘Think I’ll take a walk in the garden. By your leave, sire-’
‘No! Not for a moment! Not unless I can go with you!’
‘Don’t even think it,’ hissed Janath. ‘I’m defending your honour here!’
‘Bah!’ barked Shurq Elalle. ‘You’re defending your choice in men! That’s different.’
Tehol straightened, pushing his chair back and mustering the few remaining tatters of his dignity. ‘We can only conclude,’ he intoned loftily, ‘that nostalgic nights of reminiscences are best contemplated in the abstract-’
‘The figurative,’ suggested Bugg.
‘Rather than the literal, yes. Precisely. And now, my Chancellor and I will take the night air for a time. Court musicians-you! Over there! Wax up those instruments or whatever you have to do. Music! Something friendly!’
‘Forgiving.’
‘And forgiving!’
‘Pacifying.’
‘Pacifying!’
‘But not patronizing-’
‘But not-All right, that will do, Bugg.’
‘Of course, sire.’
Shurq watched the two cowards flee the dining hall. Once the door had closed, and the dozen or so musicians had finally settled on the same song, the captain leaned back in her chair and contemplated the Queen for a moment, and then said, ‘So, what’s all this about?’
‘I had some guests last night, ones that I think you should meet.’
‘All right. In what capacity?’
‘They may have need of you and your ship. It’s complicated.’
‘No doubt.’
Janath waved a handmaiden over and muttered some instructions. The short, overweight woman with the pimply face waddled off.
‘You really don’t trust Tehol, do you?’ Shurq asked, watching the handmaiden depart.
‘It’s not a matter of trust. More a question of eliminating temptation.’
She snorted. ‘Never works. You know that, don’t you? Besides, he’s a king. He has royal leave to exercise kingly excesses. It’s a well-established rule. Your only reasonable response is to exercise in kind.’
‘Shurq, I’m a scholar and not much else. It’s not my way-’
‘Make it your way, Highness. And then the pressure’s off both of you. No suspicions, no jealousies, no unreasonable expectations. No unworkable prohibitions.’
‘Such liberating philosophy you have, Captain.’
‘So it is.’
‘And doomed to sink into a most grisly mire of spite, betrayal and loneliness.’
‘That’s the problem with you living. You’re all stuck on seeing only the bad things. If you were dead like me you’d see how pointless all that is. A waste of precious energy. I recommend your very own ootooloo-that’ll put your thoughts in the right place.’
‘Between my legs, you mean.’
‘Exactly. Our very own treasure chest, our pleasure box, the gift most women lock up and swallow the key to, and then call themselves virtuous. What value in denying the gift and all it offers? Madness! What’s the value of a virtue that makes you miserable and wretched?’
‘There are other kinds of pleasure, Shurq-’
‘But none so readily at hand for each and every one of us. You don’t need coin. Errant fend, you don’t even need a partner! I tell you, excess is the path to contentment.’
‘And have you found it? Contentment, I mean, since your excesses are not in question.’
‘I have indeed.’
‘What if you could live again?’
‘I’ve thought about it. A lot, lately, in fact, since there’s a necromancer among the Malazans who says he can attempt a ritual that might return me to life.’
‘And?’
‘I’m undecided. Vanity.’
‘Your ageless countenance.’
‘The prospect of unending pleasure, actually.’
‘Don’t you think you might tire of it someday?’
‘I doubt it.’
Queen Janath pursed her lips. ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.
Tehol plucked a globe of pinkfruit from the tree beside the fountain. He studied it. ‘That was harsh,’ he said.
‘They wanted to make it convincing,’ said Bugg. ‘Are you going to eat that?’
‘What? Well, I thought it made a nice gesture, holding it just so, peering at it so thoughtfully.’
‘I figured as much.’
Tehol handed him the fruit. ‘Go ahead, ruin the prosaic beauty of the scene.’
Squishy, wet sounds competed with the fountain’s modest trickle.
‘Spies and secret handshakes,’ said Tehol. ‘They’re worse than the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
Bugg swallowed, licked his lips. ‘Who?’
‘Women? Lovers and ex-lovers? Old acquaintances, I don’t know. Them. They.’
‘This is a court, sire. The court plots and schemes with the same need that we-uh, you-breathe. A necessity. It’s healthy, in fact.’
‘Oh now, really.’
‘All right, not healthy, unless of course one can achieve a perfect equilibrium, each faction played off against the others. The true measure of success for a king’s Intelligence Wing.’
Tehol frowned. ‘Who’s flapping that, by the way?’
‘Your Intelligence Wing?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I am.’
‘Oh. How goes it?’
‘I fly in circles, sire.’
‘Lame, Bugg.’
‘As it must be.’
‘We need to invent another wing, I think.’
‘Do we now?’
Tehol nodded, plucking another fruit and studying it contemplatively. ‘To fly true, yes. A counter-balance. We could call it the King’s Stupidity Wing.’
Bugg took the fruit and regarded it. ‘No need, we already have it.’
‘We do?’
‘Yes, sire.’
‘Hah hah.’
Bugg bit into the globe and then spat it out. ‘Unripe! You did that on purpose!’
‘How stupid of me.’
Bugg glared.
The two women who followed the spotty handmaiden back into the dining room were an odd study in contrast. The short, curvy one dripped and dangled an astonishing assortment of gaudy jewellery. The clothing she wore stretched the definition of the word. Shurq suspected it had taken half the night to squeeze into the studded leggings, and the upper garment seemed to consist of little more than a mass of thin straps that turned her torso into a symmetrical display of dimples and pouts. Her plumpness was, perhaps, a sign of her youth as much as of soft living, although there was plenty of indolence in her rump-swaying, overly affected manner of walking-as if through a crowd of invisible but audibly gasping admirers-perched so perfectly atop high spike-heeled shoes, with one hand delicately raised. Her petite features reminded Shurq of the painted exaggeration employed by stage actors and weeping orators, with ferociously dark eye liner flaring to glittering purple below the plucked line of her eyebrows; white dust and false bloom to the rounded plump cheeks; pink and amber gloss on the full lips in diagonal barbs converging on the corners of her faintly downturned mouth. Her hair, silky black, was bound up in a frenzied array of braided knots speared with dozens of porcupine quills, each one tipped with pearls.
It was likely Shurq gaped for a moment, sufficient to earn an indulgent smile from the haughty little creature as she flounced closer.
A step behind this two-legged tome of fashion travesty walked the handmaiden-at least, that’s what the captain assumed she was. A head taller than most men, burly as a stevedore, the woman was dressed in an embroidered pink gown of some sort, shrieking femininity with a desperate air, and utterly failing to render the wearer any sort of elegance whatsoever. Diamond studs glinted high on her cheeks-and Shurq frowned, realizing with a start that the handmaiden’s face was surprisingly attractive: even features, the eyes deep, the lips full and naturally sultry. Her hair was cut close to the scalp, so blonde as to be very nearly white.
The curtsy the highborn girl presented before Queen Janath was elaborate and perfectly executed. ‘Highness, at your service.’
Janath cleared her throat. ‘Princess Felash, welcome. May I present Shurq Elalle, captain of Undying Gratitude, a seaworthy vessel engaged in independent trade. Captain, Princess Felash is the fourteenth daughter to King Tarkulf of Bolkando.’
Shurq rose and then curtsied. ‘Princess, may I compliment you on your attire. I cannot think of many women who could so exquisitely present such a vast assembly of styles.’
The handmaiden’s dark eyes flicked to Shurq and then away.
Felash preened, one hand returning to hover an artful distance to one side of her head. ‘Most kind, Captain. Few, even among my father’s court, possess the necessary sophistication to appreciate my unique tastes.’
‘I have no doubt of that, Highness.’
Another quick regard from the handmaiden.
Janath spoke hastily, ‘Forgive me, please, do sit with us, Princess. Share some wine, some dainties.’
‘Thank you, Queen Janath. You are most kind. Wine sounds wonderful, although I must regretfully decline partaking of any sweets. Must watch my weight, you know.’
Well, that’s good, since everyone else has to.
‘Oh,’ Felash then amended as soon her veiled eyes fixed upon the nearest plate heaped with desserts, ‘since this is a most special occasion, why not indulge?’ And she reached for a honey-drenched cake that mocked the notion of dainty, veritably exuding its invitation to obesity. Devouring such a trifle challenged the princess’s command of decorum, but she was quick, and in moments was carefully licking her fingertips. ‘Wonderful.’
‘Your handmaiden is welcome-’
‘Oh no, Highness! She is on the strictest diet-why, just look at the poor child!’
‘Princess Felash,’ cut in Shurq Elalle-although the handmaiden’s unchanged expression suggested she was well inured to her mistress’s callous rudeness-‘I must admit I have heard nothing of your visit to Lether-’
‘Ah, but that is because I’m not here at all, Captain. Officially, that is.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Do you?’ And the painted brat had the audacity to send her a sly wink. Felash then nodded towards Janath, even as she collected another sweetcake. ‘Your Malazan allies are about to march into a viper’s nest, you see. There is, in fact, the very real risk of a war. The more reasonable servants of the crown in Bolkando, of course, do not wish such a thing to come to pass. After all, should such conflict erupt, there is the chance that Lether will become embroiled, and then no one will be happy!’
‘So your father has sent you here on a secret mission, with appropriate assurances.’
‘My mother, actually, Captain,’ Felash corrected. She smacked her lips. ‘Alas, more than assurances were required, but all that has been taken care of, and now I wish to return home.’
Shurq thought about that for a moment. ‘Princess, the sea lanes that can draw us close to your kingdom are not particularly safe. Areas are either uncharted or inaccurately charted. And then there are the pirates-’
‘How better to confound such pirates than have one of them commanding our ship?’
Shurq Elalle started. ‘Princess, I’m not-’
‘Tush! Now you’re being silly. And no, Queen Janath has not babbled any secrets. We are quite capable of gathering our own intelligence-’
‘Alarmingly capable,’ muttered Janath, ‘as it turns out.’
‘Even if I am a pirate,’ Shurq said, ‘that is no guarantee against being set upon. The corsairs from Deal-who ply those waters-acknowledge no rules of honour when it comes to rivals. In any case, I am in fact committed to transport a cargo which, unfortunately, will take me in the opposite direction-’
‘Would that cargo be one Ublala Pung?’ Janath asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And has he a destination in mind?’
‘Well, admittedly, it’s rather vague at the moment.’
‘So,’ continued the Queen thoughtfully, ‘if you posed to him an alternative route to wherever it is he’s going, would he object?’
‘Object? He wouldn’t even understand, Highness. He’d just smile and nod and try and tweak one of my-’
‘Then it is possible you can accommodate Princess Felash even with Ublala Pung aboard, yes?’
Shurq frowned at the Queen, and then at Felash. ‘Is this a royal command, Highness?’
‘Let’s just say we would be most pleased.’
‘Then let me just say that the pleasure of however many of you exist isn’t good enough, Highness. Pay me and pay well. And we agree on a contract. And I want it in writing-from either you, Queen, or you, Princess.’
‘But the whole point of this is that it must remain unofficial. Really, Shurq-’
‘Really nothing, Janath.’
Felash waved one sticky crumb-dusted hand. ‘Agreed! I will have a contract written up. There is no problem with the captain’s conditions. None at all. Well! I am delighted that everything’s now arranged to everyone’s satisfaction!’
Janath blinked.
‘Well. That’s fine, then,’ said Shurq Elalle.
‘Oh, these sweets are a terror! I must not-oh, one more perhaps-’
A short time later and the two Bolkando guests were given leave to depart. As soon as the door closed behind them, Shurq Elalle fixed a level gaze upon Janath. ‘So, O Queen, what precisely is the situation in Bolkando?’
‘Errant knows,’ Janath sighed, refilling her goblet. ‘A mess. There are so many factions in that court it makes a college faculty look like a neighbourhood sandbox. And you may not know it, but that is saying something.’
‘A sandbox?’
‘You know, in the better-off streets, the community commons-there’s always a box of sand for children to play in, where all the feral cats go to defecate.’
‘You privileged folk have strange notions of what your children should play with.’
‘Ever get hit on the head by a gritty sausage of scat? Well then, enough of that attitude, Shurq. We were as vicious as any rags-gang you ran with, let me tell you.’
‘All right, sorry. Have you warned the Malazans that Bolkando is seething and about to go up in their faces?’
‘They know. Their allies are in the midst of it right now, in fact.’
‘So what was that princess doing here in Letheras?’
Janath made a face. ‘As far as I can tell, annihilating rival spy networks-the ones Bugg left dangling out of indifference, I suppose.’
Shurq grunted. ‘Felash? She’s no killer.’
‘No, but I’d wager her handmaiden is.’
‘How old is this fourteenth daughter, anyway? Sixteen, seventeen-’
‘Fourteen, actually.’
‘Abyss below! I can’t say I’m looking forward to transporting that puffed-up pastry-mauler all the way to the Akrynnai Range.’
‘Just go light on ballast.’
Shurq’s eyes widened.
Janath scowled. ‘The pilot charts we possess indicate shallow reefs, Captain. What did you think I was referring to?’
‘No idea, Highness. Honest.’
Janath rose. ‘Let’s go pounce on the men in the garden, shall we?’
Departing the palace unseen was enabled by the Queen’s silent servants leading the two Bolkando women down a maze of unused corridors and passageways, until at last they were ushered out into the night through a recessed postern gate.
They walked to a nearby street and there awaited the modest carriage that would take them back to their rooms in a hostel of passing quality down near the harbourfront.
Felash held one hand in the air, fingers moving in slow, sinuous rhythm-an affectation of which she seemed entirely unaware. ‘A contract! Ridiculous!’
Her handmaiden said nothing.
‘Well,’ said Felash, ‘if the captain proves too troublesome-’ and into that uplifted hand snapped a wedge-bladed dagger, appearing so suddenly it might well have been conjured out of the thin night air.
‘Mistress,’ said the handmaiden in a low, smooth and stunningly beautiful voice, ‘that will not work.’
Felash frowned. ‘Oh, grow up, you silly girl. We can leave no trail-no evidence at all.’
‘I mean, mistress, that the captain cannot be killed, for I believe she is already dead.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Even so, mistress. Furthermore, she is enlivened by an ootooloo.’
‘Oh, now that’s interesting! And exciting!’ The dagger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Fix me a bowl, will you? I need to think.’
‘Here they come,’ murmured Bugg.
Tehol turned. ‘Ah, see how they’ve made up and everything. How sweet. My darlings, so refreshing this night air, don’t you think?’
‘I’m not your darling,’ said Shurq Elalle. ‘She is.’
‘And isn’t she just? Am I not the luckiest man alive?’
‘Errant knows, it’s not talent.’
‘Or looks,’ added Janath, observing her husband with gauging regard.
‘It was better,’ Tehol said to Bugg, ‘when they weren’t allies.’
‘Divide to conquer the divide, sire, that’s my motto.’
‘And a most curious one at that. Has it ever worked for you, Bugg?’
‘I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it does.’
Thirty leagues north of Li Heng on the Quon Talian mainland was the village of Gethran, an unremarkable clump of middling drystone homes, workshops, a dilapidated church devoted to a handful of local spirits, a bar and a gaol blockhouse where the tax-collector lived in one of the cells and was in the habit of arresting himself when he got too drunk, which was just about every night.
Behind the squat temple with its thirty-two rooms was a tiered cemetery that matched the three most obvious levels of class in the village. The highest and furthest from the building was reserved for the wealthier families-the tradesfolk and skilled draft workers whose lineages could claim a presence in the town for more than three generations. Their graves were marked by ornate sepulchres, tombs constructed in the fashion of miniature temples, and the occasional tholos bricked tomb-a style of the region that reached back centuries.
The second level belonged to residents who were not particularly well-off, but generally solvent and upstanding. The burials here were naturally more modest, yet generally well maintained by relatives and offspring, characterized by flat-topped shrines and capped, stone-lined pits.
Closest to the temple, and level with its foundations, resided the dead in most need of spiritual protection and, perhaps, pity. The drunks, wastrels, addicts and criminals, their bodies stacked in elongated trenches with pits reopened in a migratory pattern, up and down the row, to allow sufficient time for the corpses to decompose before a new one was deposited.
A village no different from countless others scattered throughout the Malazan Empire. Entire lives spent in isolation from the affairs of imperial ambition, from the marching armies of conquest and magic-ravaged battles. Lives crowded with local dramas and every face a familiar one, every life known from blood-slick birth to blood-drained death.
Hounded by four older sisters, the grubby, half-wild boy who would one day be named Deadsmell was in the habit of hiding out with Old Scez, who might have been an uncle or maybe just one of his mother’s lovers before his father came back from the war. Scez was the village dresser of the dead, digger of the graves, and occasional mason for standing stones. With hands like dusty mallets, wrists as big around as a grown man’s calf, and a face that had been pushed hard to one side by a tumbling lintel stone decades back, he was not a man to draw admiring looks, but neither was he short of friends. Scez did right by the dead, after all. And he had something-every woman said as much-he had something, all right. A look in his eye that gave comfort, that promised more if more was needed. Yes, he was adored, and in the habit of making breakfasts for women all over the village, a detail young Deadsmell was slow to understand.
Naturally, a husband one day went and murdered Old Scez, and though the law said he was justified in doing it, well, that fool sickened and died a week later, and few came out to mourn the blue-faced, bloated corpse-by that time, Deadsmell had taken over as keeper of the dead, a seventeen-year-old lad everybody said never would have followed his own father-who was a lame ex-soldier who’d fought in the Quon Talian civil war but never talked about his experiences, even as he drank himself stupid with one red eye fixed on one of those trench graves behind the temple.
Young Deadsmell, who’d yet to find that name, had been pretty sure of his future once he had taken over Scez’s responsibilities. It was respectable enough, all things considered. A worthy profession, a worthy life.
In his nineteenth year, he was well settled into the half-sunken flat-roofed stone house just outside the cemetery-a house that Scez had built with his own hands-when word arrived that Hester Vill, the temple’s priest, had fallen with a stroke and was soon to enter the embrace of the spirits. It was long in coming. Hester was nearly a century old, after all, a frail thing who-it was said-had once been a hulk of a man. Boar tusks rode his ears, pierced through the lobes that had stretched over the decades until the curved yellow tusks rested on the man’s bony shoulders. Waves of fur tattoos framed Vill’s face-there had never been any doubt that Hester Vill was a priest of Fener; that he looked upon the local spirits with amused condescension, though he was ever proper in his observances on behalf of the villagers.
The priest’s approaching death was a momentous one for the village. The last acolyte had run off with a month’s worth of tithings a few years previously (Deadsmell remembered the little shit-he and Scez had once caught the brat pissing on a high-tier tomb-they’d beaten the boy and had taken pleasure in doing so). Once Vill was gone, the temple would stand abandoned, the spirits unappeased. Someone would have to be found, perhaps even a stranger, a foreigner-word would have to be sent out that Gethran Village was in need.
It was the keeper’s task to sit with the one sliding into death, if no family was available, and so the young man had thrown on Old Scez’s Greyman’s cloak, and taken in one hand his wooden box of herbs, elixirs, knives and brain-scoop, and crossed the graveyard to the refectory attached to one side of the temple.
He could not recall the last time he’d visited Vill’s home, but what he found on this night was a chamber transformed. The lone centre hearth raged, casting bizarre, frightening shadows upon all the lime-coated walls-shadows that inscribed nothing visible in the room, but skeletal branches wavering as if rattled by fierce winter winds. Half-paralysed, Hester Vill had dragged himself into his house-refusing anyone else’s assistance-and Deadsmell found the old priest lying on the floor beside the cot. He’d not the strength to lift himself to his bed and had been there for most of a day.
Death waited in the hot, dry air, pulsed from the walls and swirled round the high flames. It was drawn close with every wheezing gasp from Vill’s wrinkled mouth, feebly pushed away again in shallow, whispery exhalations.
Deadsmell lifted the frail body to the bed, tugged the threadbare blanket over Vill’s emaciated form, and he then sat, sweating, feeling half-feverish, staring down at Vill’s face. The strike was drawn heavily across the left side of the priest’s visage, sagging the withered skin and ropy muscles beneath it, plucking at the lids of the eye.
Trickling water into Vill’s gaping mouth did not even trigger a reflex swallow, telling Deadsmell that very little time remained to the man.
The hearth’s fire did not abate, and after a time that detail reached through to Deadsmell and he turned to regard the stone-lined pit. He saw no wood at the roots of the flames. Not even glowing dusty coals or embers. Despite the raging heat, a chill crept through him.
Something had arrived, deep inside that conflagration. Was it Fener? He thought that it might be. Hester Vill had been a true priest, an honourable man-insofar as anyone knew-of course his god had come to collect his soul. This was the reward for a lifetime of service and sacrifice.
Of course, the very notion of reward was exclusively human in origin, bound inside precious beliefs in efforts noted, recognized, attributed value. That it was a language understood by the gods was not just given, but incumbent-why else kneel before them?
The god that reached out from the flames to take Vill’s breath, however, was not Fener. It was Hood, with taloned hands of dusty green and fingertips stained black with putrescence, and that reach seemed halfhearted, groping as if the Lord of the Slain was blind, reluctant, weary of this pathetic necessity.
Hood’s attention brushed Deadsmell’s mind, alien in every respect but a deep, almost shapeless sorrow rising like bitter mist from the god’s own soul-a sorrow that the young mortal recognized. It was the grief one felt, at times, for the dying when those doing the dying were unknown, were in effect strangers; when their fate was almost abstract. Impersonal grief, a ghost cloak one tried on only to stand motionless, pensive, trying to convince oneself of its weight, and how that weight-when it ceased being ghostly-might feel some time in the future. When death became personal, when one could not shrug out from beneath its weight. When grief ceased being an idea and became an entire world of suffocating darkness.
Cold, alien eyes fixed momentarily upon Deadsmell, and a voice drifted into his skull. ‘You thought they cared.’
‘But-he is Fener’s very own…’
‘There is no bargain when only one side pays attention. There is no contract when only one party sets a seal of blood. I am the harvester of the deluded, mortal.’
‘And this is why you grieve, isn’t it? I can feel it-your sorrow-’
‘So you can. Perhaps, then, you are one of my own.’
‘I dress the dead-’
‘Appeasing their delusions, yes. But that does not serve me. I say you are one of my own, but what does that mean? Do not ask me, mortal. I am not one to bargain with. I promise nothing but loss and failure, dust and hungry earth. You are one of my own. We begin a game, you and me. The game of evasion.’
‘I have seen death-it doesn’t haunt me.’
‘That is irrelevant. The game is this: steal their lives-snatch them away from my reach. Curse these hands you now see, the nails black with death’s touch. Spit into this lifeless breath of mine. Cheat me at every turn. Heed this truth: there is no other form of service as honest as the one I offer you. To do battle against me, you must acknowledge my power. Even as I acknowledge yours. You must respect the fact that I always win, that you cannot help but fail. In turn, I must give to you my respect. For your courage. For the stubborn refusal that is a mortal’s greatest strength.
‘For all that, mortal, give me a good game.’
‘And what do I get in return? Never mind respect, either. What do I get back?’
‘Only that which you find. Undeniable truths. Unwavering regard of the sorrows that plague a life. The sigh of acceptance. The end of fear.’
The end of fear. Even for such a young man, such an inexperienced man, Deadsmell understood the value of such a gift. The end of fear.
‘Do not be cruel with Hester Vill, I beg you.’
‘I am not one for wilful cruelty, mortal. Yet his soul will feel sorely abused, and for that I can do nothing.’
‘I understand. It is Fener who should be made to answer for that betrayal.’
He sensed wry amusement in Hood. ‘One day, even the gods will answer to death.’
Deadsmell blinked in the sudden gloom as the fire ebbed, flickered, vanished. He peered at Vill and saw that the old man breathed no more. His expression was frozen in a distraught, broken mask. Four black spots had burned his brow.
The world didn’t give much. And what it did give it usually took back way too soon. And the hands stung with absence, the eyes that looked out were as hollow as the places they found. Sunlight wept down through drifts of dust, and a man could sit waiting to see his god, when waiting was all he had left.
Deadsmell was kicking through his memories, a task best done in solitude. Drawn to this overgrown, abandoned ruin in the heart of Letheras, with its otherworldly insects, its gaping pits and its root-bound humps of rotted earth, he wandered as if lost. The Lord of Death was reaching into this world once again, swirling a finger through pools of mortal blood. But Deadsmell remained blind to the patterns so inscribed, this intricate elaboration on the old game.
He found that he feared for his god. For Hood, his foe, his friend. The only damned god he respected.
The necromancer’s game was one that others could not understand. To them it was the old rat dodging the barn cat, a one-sided hunt bound in mutual hatred. It was nothing like that, of course. Hood didn’t despise necromancers-the god knew that no one else truly understood him and his last-of-last worlds. Ducking the black touch, stealing back souls, mocking life with the animation of corpses-they were the vestments of true worship. Because true worship was, in its very essence, a game.
“ ‘There is no bargain when only one side pays attention.’ ”
Moments after voicing that quote, Deadsmell grunted in sour amusement. Too much irony in saying such a thing to ghosts, especially in a place so crowded with them as here, less than a dozen paces from the gate to the Azath House.
He had learned that Brys Beddict had been slain, once, only to be dragged back. A most bitter gift, it was a wonder the King’s brother hadn’t gone mad. When a soul leaves the path, a belated return has the fool stumbling again and again. Every step settling awkwardly, as if the imprint of one’s own foot no longer fit it, as if the soul no longer matched the vessel of its flesh and bone and was left jarred, displaced.
And now he had heard about a woman cursed undead. Ruthan Gudd had gone so far as to hint that he’d bedded the woman-and how sick was that? Deadsmell shook his head. As bad as sheep, cows, dogs, goats and fat bhokarala. No, even worse. And did she want the curse unravelled? No-at least with that he had to agree. It does no good to come back. One gets used to things staying the same, more used to that than how a living soul felt about its own sagging, decaying body. Besides, the dead never come back all the way. ‘It’s like knowing the secret to a trick, the wonder goes away. They’ve lost all the delusions that once comforted them.’
‘Deadsmell!’
He turned to see Bottle picking his way round the heaps and holes.
‘Heard you saying something-ghosts never got anything good to say, why bother talking with them?’
‘I wasn’t.’
The young mage reached him and then stood, staring at the old Jaghut tower. ‘Did you see the baggage train forming up outside the city? Gods, we’ve got enough stuff to handle an army five times our size.’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
Bottle grunted. ‘That’s what Fiddler said.’
‘We’ll be marching into nowhere. Resupply will be hard to manage, maybe impossible.’
‘Into nowhere, that seems about right.’
Deadsmell pointed at the Azath House. ‘They went in there, I think.’
‘Sinn and Grub?’
‘Aye.’
‘Something snatch them?’
‘I don’t think so. I think they went through, the way Kellanved and Dancer learned how to do.’
‘Where?’
‘No idea, and no, I have no plans to follow them. We have to consider them lost. Permanently.’
Bottle glanced at him. ‘You throw that at the Adjunct yet?’
‘I did. She wasn’t happy.’
‘I bet she wasn’t.’ He scratched at the scraggy beard he seemed intent on growing. ‘So tell me why you think they went in there.’
Deadsmell grimaced. ‘I remember the day I left my home. A damned ram had got on to the roof of my house-the house I inherited, I mean. A big white bastard, eager to hump anything with legs. The look it gave me was empty and full, if you know what I mean-’
‘No. All right, yes. When winter’s broken-the season, and those eyes.’
‘Empty and full, and from its perch up there it had a damned good view of the graveyard, all three tiers, from paupers to the local version of nobility. I’d just gone and buried the village priest-’
‘Hope he was dead when you did it.’
‘Some people die looking peaceful. Others die all too knowing. Empty and full. He didn’t know until he did his dying, and that kind of face is the worst kind to look down on.’ He scowled. ‘The worst kind, Bottle.’
‘Go on.’
‘What have you got to be impatient about, soldier?’
Bottle flinched. ‘Sorry. Nothing.’
‘Most impatient people I meet are just like that, once you kick through all the attitude. They’re in a lather, in a hurry about nothing. The rush is in their heads, and they expect everyone else to up the pace and get the fuck on with it. I got no time for such shits.’
‘They make you impatient, do they?’
‘No time, I said. Meaning the more they push, the longer I take.’
Bottle flashed a grin. ‘I hear you.’
‘Good.’ Deadsmell paused, working back round to his thoughts. ‘That ram, looming up there, well, it just hit me, those eyes. We all got them, I think, some worse than others. For the priest, they came late-but the promise was there, all his life. Same for everyone. You see that it’s empty, and that revelation fills you up.’
‘Wait-what’s empty?’
‘The whole Hood-forsaken mess, Bottle. All of it.’
‘Well now, aren’t you a miserable crudge, Deadsmell.’
‘I’ll grant you, this particular place eats on me, chews up memories I’d figured were long buried. Anyway, there I was, standing. Ram on one side, the priest’s tomb on the other-high ridge, highest I could find-and the highborn locals were going to howl when they saw that. But I didn’t care any longer.’
‘Because you left that day.’
‘Aye. Down to Li Heng, first in line at the recruiting office. A soldier leaves the dead behind and the ones a soldier does bury, well, most of the time they’re people that soldier knows.’
‘We don’t raise battlefield barrows for just our own dead.’
‘That’s not what I mean by “knowing”, Bottle. Ever look down on an enemy’s face, a dead one, I mean?’
‘A few times, aye.’
‘What did you see?’
Bottle shifted uneasily, squinted at the tower again. ‘Point taken.’
‘No better place to piss on Hood’s face than in an army. When piss is all you got, and let’s face it, it’s all any of us has got.’
‘I’m waiting-patiently-to see how all this comes back to Sinn and Grub and the Azath.’
‘Last night, I went to the kennels and got out Bent and Roach-the lapdog’s the one of them with the real vicious streak, you know. Old Bent, he’s just a damned cattle-dog. Pretty simple, straightforward. I mean, you know what he really wants to do is rip out your throat. But no games, right? Not Roach, the simpering fanged demon. Well, I thumped Bent on the head which told him who’s boss. Roach gave me a tail wag and then went for my ankle-I had to near strangle it to work its jaws loose from my boot.’
‘You collected the dogs.’
‘Then I unleashed them both. They shot like siege bolts-up streets, down alleys, round buildings and right through screaming crowds-right up to that door over there. The Azath.’
‘How’d you keep up with them?’
‘I didn’t. I set a geas on them both and just followed that. By the time I got here, Roach had been throwing itself at the door so often it was lying stunned on the path. And Bent was trying to dig through the flagstones.’
‘So why didn’t any of us think of doing something like that?’
‘Because you’re all stupid, that’s why.’
‘What did you do then?’ Bottle asked.
‘I opened the door. In they went. I heard them racing up the stairs-and then… nothing. Silence. The dogs went after Sinn and Grub, through a portal of some sort.’
‘You know,’ said Bottle, ‘if you’d come to me, I could have ridden the souls of one of them, and got maybe an idea of where that portal opened out. But then, since you’re a genius, Deadsmell, I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for not doing that.’
‘Hood’s breath. All right, so I messed up. Even geniuses can get stupid on occasion.’
‘It was Crump who delivered your message-I could barely make any sense of it. You wanted to meet me here, and here I am. But this tale of yours you could have told me over a tankard at Gosling’s Tavern.’
‘I chose Crump because I knew that as soon as he delivered the message he’d forget all about it. He’d even forget I talked to him, and that he then talked to you. He is, in fact, the thickest man I have ever known.’
‘So we meet in secret. How mysterious. What do you want with me, Deadsmell?’
‘I want to know about your nightly visitor, to start with. I figured it’d be something best done in private.’
Bottle stared at him.
Deadsmell frowned. ‘What?’
‘I’m waiting to see the leer.’
‘I don’t want those kind of details, idiot! Do you ever see her eyes? Do you ever look into them, Bottle?’
‘Aye, and every time I wish I didn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s so much… need in them.’
‘Is that it? Nothing else?’
‘Plenty else, Deadsmell. Pleasure, maybe even love-I don’t know. Everything I see in her eyes… it’s in the “now.” I don’t know how else to explain it. There’s no past, no future, only the present.’
‘Empty and full.’
Bottle’s gaze narrowed. ‘Like the ram, aye, the animal side of her. It freezes me in my tracks, I admit, as if I was looking into a mirror and seeing my own eyes, but in a way no one else can see them. My eyes with…’ he shivered, ‘nobody behind them. Nobody I know.’
‘Nobody anyone knows,’ Deadsmell said, nodding. ‘Bottle, I once looked into Hood’s own eyes, and I saw the same thing-I even felt what you just described. Me, but not me. Me, but really, nobody. And I think I know what I saw-what you keep seeing in her, as well. I think I finally understand it-those eyes, the empty and full, the solid absence in them.’ He faced Bottle. ‘It’s our eyes in death. Our eyes when our souls have fled them.’
Bottle was suddenly pale. ‘Gods below, Deadsmell! You just poured cold worms down my spine. That-that’s just horrible. Is that what comes of looking into the eyes of too many dead people? Now I know to keep my own eyes averted when I walk a killing field-gods!’
‘The ram was full of seed,’ said Deadsmell, studying the Azath once more, ‘and needed to get it out. Was it the beast’s last season? Did it know it? Does it believe it every spring? No past and no future. Full and empty. Just that. Always that. For ever that.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘I’m out of moves, Bottle. I can feel it. I’m out of moves.’
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘me puttin’ my finiger-my finger-in there does nothing for me. Don’t you get that? Bah!’ And she rolled away from him, thinking to swing her feet down and then maybe stand up, but someone had cut the cot down the middle and she thumped on to the filthy floor. ‘Ow. I think.’
Skulldeath popped up for a look, his huge liquid woman’s eyes gleaming beneath his ragged fringe of inky black hair.
Hellian had a sudden bizarre memory, bizarre in that it reached her at all since few ever did. She’d been a child, only a little drunk (hah hah), stumbling down a grassy bank to a trickling creek, and in the shallows she’d found this slip of a minnow, dead but fresh dead. Taking the limp thing into her hand, she peered down at it. A trout of some kind, a flash of the most stunning red she’d ever seen, and along its tiny back ran a band of dark iridescent green, the colour of wet pine boughs.
Why Skulldeath reminded her of that dead minnow she had no idea. Wasn’t the colours, because he wasn’t red or even green. Wasn’t the deadness because he didn’t look very dead, blinking like that. The slippiness? Could be. That liquid glisten, aye, that minnow in the bowl of her hand, in its paltry pool of water wrapping it like a coffin or a cocoon. She remembered now, suddenly, the deep sorrow she’d felt. Young ones struggled so. Lots of them died, sometimes for no good reason. What was the name of that stream? Where the Hood was it?
‘Where did I grow up?’ she whispered, still lying on the floor. ‘Who was I? In a city? Outside a city? Farm? Quarry?’
Skulldeath slithered to the cot’s edge and watched her in confused hunger.
Hellian scowled. ‘Who am I? Damned if I know. And does it even matter? Gods, I’m sober. Who did that to me?’ She glared at Skulldeath. ‘You? Bastard!’
‘Not bastard,’ he said. ‘Prince! King in waiting! Me. You… you Queen. My Queen. King and Queen, we. Two tribes now together, make one great tribe. I rule. You rule. People kneel and bring gifts.’
She bared her teeth at him. ‘Listen, idiot, if I never knelt to nobody in my life, there’s no way I’ll make anybody kneel to me, unless,’ she added, ‘we both got something else in mind. Piss on kings and queens, piss on ’em! All that pomp is pure shit, all that…’ she scowled, searching for the word, ‘… all that def’rence! Listen! I’ll salute an orficer, cos that crap’s needed in an army, right? But that’s because somebody needs to be in charge. Don’t mean they’re better. Not purer of blood, not even smarter, you unnerstand me? It’s just-between that orficer and me-it’s just something we agree between us. We agree to it, right? To make it work! Highborn, they’re different. They got expectations. Piss on that! Who says they’re better? Don’t care how fuckin’ rich they are-they can shit gold bricks, it’s still shit, right?’ She jabbed a finger up at Skulldeath. ‘You’re a hood-damned soldier and that’s all you are. Prince! Hah!’ And then she rolled over and threw up.
Cuttle and Fiddler stood watching the row of heavily padded wagons slowly wend through the supply camp to the tree-lined commons where they would be stored, well away from everything else. Dust filled the air above the massive sprawl of tents, carts, pens, and parked wagons, and now as the day was ending, thin grey smoke lifted lazily skyward from countless cookfires.
‘Y’know,’ said Cuttle, his eyes on the last of the Moranth munitions, ‘this is stupid. We done what we could-either they make it or they don’t, and even this far away, if they go up, we’re probably finished.’
‘They’ll make it,’ said Fiddler.
‘Hardly matters, Sergeant. Fourteen cussers for a whole damned army. A hundred sharpers? Two hundred? It’s nothing. If we get into trouble out there, it’s going to be bad.’
‘These Letherii have decent ballistae and onagers, Cuttle. Expensive, but lack of coin doesn’t seem to be one of Tavore’s shortcomings.’ He was silent for a moment, and then he grunted. ‘Let’s not talk about anyone’s shortcomings. Sorry I said it.’
‘We got no idea what we’re going to find, Fid. But we can all feel it. There’s a dread, settling down on all of us like a sky full of ashes. Makes my skin crawl. We crossed Seven Cities. We took on this empire. So what’s so different this time?’ He shook himself. ‘Our landings here, they were pretty much a blind assault-and what information we had was mostly wrong. But it didn’t matter. Not knowing ain’t enough to drag us down s’far as we been dragged down right now. I don’t get it.’
Fiddler scratched at his beard, adjusted the strap beneath his chin. ‘Hot and sticky, isn’t it? Not dry like Seven Cities. Sucks all the energy away, especially when you’re wearing armour.’
‘We need that armour to guard against the Hood-damned mosquitoes,’ said Cuttle. ‘Without it we’d be wrinkled sacks filled with bones. And those bugs carry diseases-the healers been treating twenty soldiers a day who come down with that sweating ague.’
‘The mosquitoes are the cause?’
‘So I heard.’
‘Well then, as soon as we get deeper into the wastelands, we won’t have to worry about that any longer.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Mosquitoes need water to breed. Anyway, these local ones, they’re small. We hit swarms in Blackdog you’d swear were flocks of hummingbirds.’
Blackdog. Still a name that could send chills through a Malazan soldier, whether they’d been in it or not. Cuttle wondered how a place-a happening now years and years old-could sink into a people, like scars passed from parents to child. Scars, aye, and stains, and the sour taste of horror and misery-was it even possible? Or was it the stories-stories like the one Fiddler just told? Not even a story, was it? Just a detail. Exaggerated, aye, but still a detail. Enough details, muttered here and there, every now and then, and something started clumping up inside, like a ball of wet clay, smearing everything. And before too long, there it is, compacted and hard as a damned rock, perfect to rattle around inside a man’s head, knocking about his thoughts and confusing him.
And confusion was what hid behind fear, after all. Every soldier knew it, and knew how deadly it could be, especially in the storm of battle. Confusion led to mistakes, bad judgements, and sure enough, blind panic was the first stinking flower confusion plucked when it was time to dance in the fields.
‘Looking way too thoughtful there, sapper,’ said Fiddler. ‘Bad for your health.’
‘Was thinking about dancing in the fields.’
‘Hood’s breath, it’s been years since I heard that phrase. No reason to dredge that up just yet, Cuttle. Besides, the Bonehunters haven’t shown any inclination to break and run-’
‘I know it makes sense to keep us all dumb and ignorant, Sergeant, but sometimes that can go too far.’
‘Our great unknown purpose.’
Cuttle nodded sharply. ‘If we’re mercenaries now we should be for hire. But we aren’t, and even if we were, there’s nobody around wants to hire us, is there? And not likely anybody out in the Wastelands or even beyond. And now I caught them rumours of scraps in Bolkando. The Burned Tears, and maybe even the Perish. Now, going in and extricating our allies is a good cause, a decent one-’
‘Waves all the right banners.’
‘Exactly. But it wouldn’t be our reasons for being here in the first place, would it?’
‘We kicked down a mad emperor, sapper. And delivered to the Letherii a message about preying on foreign shores-’
‘They didn’t need it. The Tiste Edur did-’
‘And don’t you think we humbled them enough, Cuttle?’
‘So now what? We’re really getting nothing here, Fid, and less than nothing.’
‘Give it up,’ drawled Fiddler. ‘You wasn’t invited to the reading. Nothing that happened then was for you-I’ve already told you so.’
‘Plenty for Tavore, though, and hey, look! We just happen to be following her around!’
The last of the wagons reached the makeshift depot, and the oxen were being unhitched. Sighing, Fiddler unclipped his helm and drew it off. ‘Let’s go look in on Koryk.’
Cuttle frowned as he fell in beside his sergeant. ‘Our squad’s all over the place these days.’
‘Bottle likes wandering off. Nobody else. You can’t count Koryk, can you? It’s not like he camped out in the infirmary because of the décor.’
‘Bottle’s your problem, Sergeant. Ducking out of stuff, disappearing for days on end-’
‘He’s just bored.’
‘Who ain’t? I just got this feeling we’re going to fit badly for a week or two once we start marching.’
Fiddler snorted. ‘We’ve never fit well, Cuttle. You telling me you’ve never noticed?’
‘We done good in that Letherii village-’
‘No we didn’t. If it wasn’t for Hellian’s and Gesler’s squads-and then Badan Gruk’s, why, our fingernails would be riding flower buds right about now, like cute hats. We were all over the place, Cuttle. Koryk and Smiles running off like two lovestruck hares-turned out Corabb was my best fist.’
‘You’re looking at it bad, Fiddler. All that. Edur were coming in on all sides-we had to split ’em up.’
Fiddler shrugged. ‘Maybe so. And granted, we did better in Y’Ghatan. I guess I can’t help comparing, ’times. A useless habit, I know-stop looking at me like that, sapper.’
‘So you had Hedge and Quick Ben. And that assassin-what was his name again?’
‘Kalam.’
‘Aye, that boar with knives. Stupid, him getting killed in Malaz City. Anyway, my point is-’
‘We had a Barghast for a squad fist, and then there was Sorry-never mind her-and Whiskeyjack and Hood knows, I’m no Whiskeyjack.’ Noticing that Cuttle was laughing, Fiddler’s scowl deepened. ‘What’s so damned funny?’
‘Only that it sounds like your old Bridgeburner squad was probably just as bad fitting as this one is. Maybe even worse. Look. Corabb’s a solid fist, with the Lady’s hand down the front of his trousers; and if he drops then Tarr steps in, and if Tarr goes, then Koryk. You had Sorry-we got Smiles.’
‘And instead of Hedge,’ said Fiddler, ‘I got you, which is a damned improvement, come to think on it.’
‘I can’t sap the way he can-’
‘Gods, I’m thankful for that.’
Cuttle squinted at his sergeant as they approached the enormous hospital tent. ‘You really got something to pick with Hedge, don’t you? The legend goes that you two were close, as nasty in your own way as Quick Ben and Kalam. What happened between you two?’
‘When a friend dies you got to put them away, and that’s what I did.’
‘Only he’s back.’
‘Back and yet, not back. I can’t say it any better.’
‘So, if it can’t be what it was, make it something new.’
‘It’s worse than you think. I see his face, and I think about all the people now dead. Our friends. All dead now. It was-I hate saying this-it was easier when it was just me. Even Quick Ben and Kalam showing up sort’ve left me out of sorts-but we were all the survivors, right? The ones who made it through, to that point. It was natural, I guess, and that was good enough. Now there’s still Quick but the Adjunct’s got him and that’s fine. It was back to me, you understand? Back to just me.’
‘Until Hedge shows up.’
‘Comes down to what fits and what’s supposed to fit, I suppose.’ They had paused outside the tent entrance. Fiddler scratched at his sweaty, thinning hair. ‘Maybe in time…’
‘Aye, that’s how I’d see it. In time.’
They entered the ward.
Cots creaked and trembled with soldiers rattling about beneath sodden woollen blankets, soldiers delirious and soaked in sweat as they thrashed and shivered. Cutters stumbled from bed to bed with dripping cloths. The air stank of urine.
‘Hood’s breath!’ hissed Cuttle. ‘It’s looking pretty bad, ain’t it?’
There were at least two hundred cots, each and every one occupied by a gnat-bit victim. The drenched cloths, Cuttle saw, were being pushed against mouths in an effort to get some water into the stricken soldiers.
Fiddler pointed. ‘There. No, don’t bother, he wouldn’t even recognize us right now.’ He reached out and snagged a passing cutter. ‘Where’s our Denul healers?’
‘The last one collapsed this morning. Exhaustion, Sergeant. All worn out-now, I got to keep getting water in ’em, all right?’
Fiddler let go of the man’s arm.
They retreated outside once more. ‘Let’s go find Brys Beddict.’
‘He’s no healer, Sergeant-’
‘I know that, idiot. But, did you see any Letherii carters or support staff lying on cots in there?’
‘No-’
‘Meaning there must be a local treatment against this ague.’
‘Sometimes local people are immune to most of what can get at ’em, Fid-’
‘That’s rubbish. What can get at them kills most of them so us foreigners don’t ever see them in the first place. And most of the time it’s the usual sources of contagion-leaking latrines, standing water, spoiled foods.’
‘Oh. So how come you know so much about all that?’
‘Before Moranth munitions, Cuttle, us sappers did a lot of rebuilding work, following occupations. Built sewage systems, dug deep wells, cold-pits-made the people we were killing a month before into smiling happy healthy citizens of the Malazan Empire. I’m surprised you didn’t do any of that yourself.’
‘I did, but I could never figure out why we was doing it in the first place.’
Fiddler halted. ‘What you said earlier about not knowing anything…’
‘Aye?’
‘Has it ever occurred to you, Cuttle, that maybe not knowing anything has more to do with you than with anyone else?’
‘No.’
Fiddler stared at Cuttle, who stared back, and then they continued on, in search of Brys Beddict.
The Malazan army was slowly decamping from the city, squads and half-squads trickling in to the company forts that now occupied what had once been killing fields. A lot of soldiers, after a few nights in the tents, were falling sick-like Koryk-and had to be carted off to the hospital compound set up between the army and the baggage camp.
The war-games were over, but they’d done their damage. So many soldiers had found ways out of them, ended up scattered all over the city, that the army’s cohesion-already weakened by the invasion where the marines saw most of the messy work-was in a bad state.
Sitting on a camp stool outside the squad tent, Corporal Tarr uncoiled another reach of iron wire and, using an ingenious clipper some Malazan blacksmith had invented a few decades back, began cutting it into short lengths. Chain armour took a lot of work to maintain. He could have sent it off to the armourers but he preferred doing his own repairs, not that he didn’t trust-well, aye, he didn’t trust the bastards, especially when harried and overworked as they were these days. No, he’d use the tugger to wrap the length round a spar, shuck it off and close up the gaps one by one. Used to be they’d work a longer length, coiled right up the spar, and then swirl-cut across all the links, but that ruined whatever blade was used to do the cutting, and files made the gaps too wide and left ragged edges that cut an underpad to ribbons. Miserable, frustrating work. No, this was easier, working each link, pinching the gaps to check that the crimping hadn’t left any spurs, and then using the tugger to fix each link in place. And then-
‘Your obsessions drive me mad, Tarr, did you know that?’
‘Go find something to do, Smiles. And you keep forgetting, I’m your corporal.’
‘Proving just how messed-up the command structure’s got to.’
‘Bleat that to the sergeant, why don’t you?’
‘Where’s Corabb gone?’
Tarr shrugged, adjusting the chain hauberk draped across his thighs. ‘Went off to requisition a new weapon.’
‘He lost another one?’
‘Broke it, actually, and before you ask, I’m not telling you how.’
‘Why not?’
Tarr said nothing for a moment, and then he looked up to see Smiles scowling down at him, her hands anchored on her hips. ‘What shape’s your kit in, soldier?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Restocked on quarrels?’
‘Got one with your name on it. Got plenty others besides.’
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas was coming up the track, his gait peculiar, each step cautious-as if he was testing thin ice-and pitched slightly to the outside, as if he were straddling a barrel. Slung over one shoulder was a Letherii-made longsword in a scabbard still caked in burlap-patterned wax. Tucked under an arm was a feather-stuffed pillow.
Arriving at the cookfire, he set the pillow down on a stool and then gingerly settled on to it.
‘What the Hood did you do?’ Smiles demanded. ‘Pick your hole with it?’
Corabb scowled. ‘It’s personal.’ He brought his new sword round and set it across his thighs, and in his face was an expression Tarr had seen only on the faces of children on the Queen of Dreams’s Gift-Day, a brightness, flushed, eyes eager to see what waited beneath the dyed snakeskin wrappings.
‘It’s just a sword, Corabb,’ said Smiles. ‘Really.’
Tarr saw that wondrous expression in Corabb’s face fall away suddenly, slapped back into hiding. The corporal fixed hard eyes on Smiles. ‘Soldier, go fill up enough travel sacks for each one of us in the squad. You’ll need to requisition a mule and cart, unless you’re planning on more than one trip.’
She bridled. ‘Why me?’
Because you cut people out of boredom. ‘Just get out of my sight. Now.’
‘Ain’t you the friendly one,’ she muttered, setting off.
Tarr set down his tools. ‘Letherii? Well, Corabb, let’s see the thing, shall we?’
And the man’s eyes lit up.
They had days before the official mustering for the march. Tarr’s orders were premature. And if she was corporal, she’d have known that and not made her go off for no good reason. Why, if she was corporal, she’d dump stupid tasks all over Tarr every time he irritated her, which would probably be all the time. Anyway, she decided she’d let herself be distracted, maybe until late tonight. Tarr was in the habit of bedding down early.
If Koryk weren’t sweating like a fish-trader in a soak-hole, she’d have some decent company right now. Instead, she wandered towards a huddle of heavies gathered round some sort of game. The usual crowd, she saw. Mayfly and Tulip, Flashwit, Shortnose, Saltlick, and some from a different company that she remembered from that village scrap-Drawfirst, Lookback and Vastly Blank. Threading through the smelly press, she made her way to the edge of the ring.
No game. A huge bootprint in the dust. ‘What’s going on?’ Smiles demanded. ‘It’s a footprint, for Hood’s sake!’
Huge faces peered at her from all sides, and then Mayfly said, in a tone of stunned reverence, ‘It’s from him.’
‘Who?’
‘Him, like she said,’ said Shortnose.
Smiles looked back down at the print. ‘Really? Not a chance. How can you tell?’
Flashwit wiped at her nose-which had been dripping ever since they arrived on this continent. ‘It ain’t none of ours. See that heel? That’s a marine heel, them iron studs in a half ring like that.’
Smiles snorted. ‘You idiots. Half the army wears those!’ She looked round. ‘Gods below, you’re all wearing those!’
‘Exactly,’ said Flashwit.
And everyone nodded.
‘So, let’s just follow the tracks and get a real good look at him, then.’
‘We thought of that,’ said Shortnose. ‘Only there’s only the one, see?’
‘What do you mean? One print? Just one? But that’s ridiculous! You must’ve scuffed up the others-’
‘No,’ said Lookback, thick fingers twisting greasy hair beside a cabbage ear. ‘I was the first to come on it, right, and it was all alone. Just like that. All alone. Who else coulda done something like that, but him?’
‘You’re all idiots. I don’t think Nefarias Bredd even exists.’
‘That’s because you’re stupid!’ shouted Vastly Blank. ‘You’re a stupid, a stupid, uh, a stupid, you’re just stupid. And I don’t like you. Drawfirst, that’s right, isn’t it? I don’t like her, do I? Do I?’
‘Do you know her, Vastly? Know who she is?’
‘No, Drawfirst. I don’t. Not even that.’
‘Well, then it’s got to be you don’t like her, then. It’s got to be. You’re right, Vastly.’
‘I knew it.’
‘Listen,’ said Smiles, ‘who wants to play bones?’
‘With what?’ Mayfly asked.
‘With bones, of course!’
‘We ain’t got none.’
‘But I do.’
‘You do what?’
Smiles gave everyone a bright, happy smile, and even that made her face hurt. She drew out a small leather pouch. ‘Lay your bets down, soldiers, and let’s have us a game. Now listen carefully while I explain the rules-’
‘We know the rules,’ said Shortnose.
‘Not my rules you don’t. Mine are different.’ She scanned the suddenly interested faces and all those tiny eyes fixed on her. ‘Listen now, and listen carefully, because they’re kind of complicated. Vastly, you come stand beside me, right here, the way best friends do, right?’
Vastly Blank nodded. ‘Right!’ And, chest swelling, he pushed through the others.
‘A word with you, Lieutenant.’
Pores snapped to his feet. ‘Aye, sir!’
‘Follow me.’ Captain Kindly walked sharply out from the headquarters, and soldiers busy packing equipment ducked desperately out of the man’s path, furtive as cats underfoot. There was a certain carelessness when it came to getting out of Lieutenant Pores’s way, however, forcing him to kick a few shins as he hastened after the captain.
They emerged into the parade square and halted before a ragged row of what looked like civilians with nowhere to go but up, an even dozen in all. Seeing the two at the far end, Pores’s spirits sank.
‘I am promoting you sideways,’ Kindly said to him. ‘Master Sergeant.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I do this out of recognition of your true talents, Master Sergeant Pores, in the area of recruiting from the local population.’
‘Ah, sir, I assure you again that I had nothing to do with those two whores’-and he gestured at the pair of immensely obese women at the end of the row- ‘showing up unannounced in your office.’
‘Your modesty impresses me, Master Sergeant. As you can see now, however, what we have before us here are Letherii recruits. Indebted, mostly, and, as you observed, two now retired from a most noble and altruistic profession.’ His tone hardened. ‘And as every Malazan soldier knows, a life before joining the ranks has no bearing once the vows are sworn and the kit is issued. There exist no barriers to advancement beyond competence-’
‘And sometimes not even that, sir.’
‘Even confessions are insufficient cause to interrupt me, Master Sergeant. Now, these venerable recruits belong to you. Kit them out and then take them for a long hike-they clearly need to be worked into fighting trim. We march in two days, Master Sergeant.’
‘Fighting trim in just two days, sir?’
‘Your recruits rely upon your competence, as do I,’ said Kindly, looking nauseatingly satisfied. ‘Might I suggest that your first task lies in sobering them up. Now, I leave you to it, Master Sergeant.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ And he saluted.
Captain Kindly marched back into the headquarters.
Pores stared after him. ‘This,’ he whispered, ‘is war.’
The nearest recruit, a scrawny man of forty or so with a huge stained moustache, suddenly brightened. ‘Can’t wait, sir!’
Pores wheeled on him. ‘I’m no “sir”, dung beetle! I am Master Sergeant!’
‘Sorry, Master Sergeant!’
‘You don’t think, I trust, that my sideways promotion is not a bold announcement of Captain Kindly’s confidence in me?’
‘Absolutely not, Master Sergeant!’
Pores strode down to the far end of the row and glared at the two whores. ‘Gods below, what are you two doing here?’
The blonde one, her face glowing in the manner of overweight people the world over, when made to stand for any length of time, belched and said, ‘Master Sergeant, look at us!’
‘I am looking.’
‘We ain’t had no luck cuttin’ the lard, y’see. But in a army, well, we got no choice, do we?’
‘You’re both drunk.’
‘We give up that, too,’ said the black-haired one.
‘And the whoring?’
‘Aw, Master Sergeant, leave us a little fun!’
‘You’re both standing here out of breath-kitting you out and running you will kill you both.’
‘We don’t mind, Master Sergeant. Whatever works!’
‘Tell me the name of the soldier who hired you to visit the captain.’
The women exchanged sly looks, and then the blonde said, ‘Never gave it to us.’
‘Man or woman?’
‘Never said either way, Master Sergeant.’
‘It was dark that day,’ added the black-haired woman. ‘Anyway, Big Kindly said-’
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’
‘Oh, uhm. Captain Kindly is what I meant, now that he’s back in uniform, I mean-’
‘And it’s a nice uniform,’ chimed in the blonde.
‘And he said that you was the best and the hardest working, most fit, like, and healthy soldier in the whole Miserable Army-’
‘That’s Malazan Army.’
‘Right. Sorry, Master Sergeant, it’s all the foreign names done us in.’
‘And the jug of rum, I’d wager.’
She nodded. ‘And the jugs of rum.’
At the plural Pores’s two eyes found a pernicious will of their own, and fell slightly down from the woman’s face. He coughed and turned to study all the other recruits. ‘Running from debt I understand,’ he said. ‘Same for armies the world over. Indebted, criminal, misfit, pervert, patriot and insane, and that list’s from my very own military application. And look at me, promoted up to Lieutenant and sideways to Master Sergeant. So, dear recruits,’ and Pores slapped on a broad smile, which was answered by everyone in the line, ‘nobody knows better where you’re coming from, and nobody knows better where you’re going to end up, which is probably in either the infirmary or the stockade. And I mean to get you there in no time flat!’
‘Yes, Master Sergeant!’ shouted the moustached idiot.
Pores stamped up to the man, whose grin suddenly wavered. ‘In the Malazan Army,’ he said, ‘old names are tossed. They were bad names anyway, every one of them. You, you are now Twit, and you’re my first squad leader.’
‘Yes, Master Sergeant! Thank you, Master Sergeant!’
‘Now,’ Pores continued, hands behind his back as he began strolling up and down the row, ‘two days to turn you earwigs into soldiers-even for me-is simply impossible. No, what I need to do is attach you to a real squad, and I have the perfect squad in mind.’ And then he halted and wheeled to face them. ‘But first, we’re all going to march to the privy, where each and every one of you is going to-in perfect unison as befits soldiers-shove a finger down your throat and vomit into the trough. And then we’re going to collect uniforms from the quartermaster, and your training kits. Now, Sergeant Twit, fall ’em in behind you and follow me.’
‘Yes, Master Sergeant! We’re off to war!’
And the others cheered.
The cookfires were coal-bedded and simmering pots hung over them by the time Master Sergeant Pores led his sickly, gasping crew up to the squad tents of the 3rd Company. ‘Third Company Sergeants!’ he bellowed. ‘Front and forward this instant!’
Watched by a score of faces half-lit by firelight, Badan Gruk, Sinter, and Primly slowly converged to stand in front of Pores.
‘I am Master Sergeant Pores and this-’
‘Thought you was Captain Kindly,’ said Sinter.
‘No, that would be my twin, who sadly drowned in a bucket of his own puke yesterday. Interrupt me again, Sergeant, and I’ve got a whole trough of puke waiting just for you.’
Badan Gruk grunted. ‘But I thought he was Lieutenant Pores-’
Pores scowled at him. ‘My other twin, now detached from the Bonehunters and serving as bodyguard and consort to Queen Frapalava of the Kidgestool Empire. Now, enough yabbering. As you can see behind me, we have new recruits who need to be ready to march in two days-’
‘March where, Master Sergeant?’
Pores sighed. ‘Why, with the rest of us, Sergeant Sinter. In fact, right beside your three squads, as they are now your responsibilities.’ He turned and gestured at his row. Two recruits stepped out on cue. ‘Acting Sergeants Twit and Nose Stream.’ He gestured again and two more emerged. ‘Acting Corporals Rumjugs and Sweetlard-I suggest Corporal Kisswhere take them under her personal care. Now, you will note that they’ve brought tents. Unfortunately, none of the recruits know how to put them up. Get them to it. Any questions? Good. Dismissed.’
A short time later, Pores sighted one of the newer tents in the camp and, after eyeing the three soldiers squatting round the nearest cookfire, he drew himself up and marched up to them.
‘Soldiers-at ease. Is there a partition at the back of that tent? I thought so.’
‘Sergeant Urb’s commandeered that bit, Lieutenant-’
‘Commendable. Alas, my friends-and I know this is miserable news-but Captain Kindly is now requisitioning it on my behalf. I argued against it-I mean, the injustice of such a thing, but, well, you all know about Captain Kindly, don’t you?’ And he was pleased to see the sullen nods. Pores patted a satchel at his hip. ‘Supply lists-I need somewhere private, and now that the HQ’s been shut down, well, you’re to provide me with my office. But listen, friends-and be sure to tell this to Sergeant Urb-since I’m working on supplies, materiel and-did I mention?-foodstuffs for the officers, which of course includes wines of passing vintage-well, even one as perfect as me can’t help but lose a crate or two from the inventory.’ And see how they smiled.
‘All yours, Lieutenant.’
‘Excellent. Now, be sure not to disturb me.’
‘Aye, Lieutenant.’
Pores made his way in, stepping over the bedrolls and kits, and through the curtain where he found a decent camp cot, clean blankets and a well-maintained pillow. Kicking his boots off, he settled down on the cot, turned the lantern down, and drew out from his satchel the first of the five flasks he’d confiscated from his recruits.
One could learn a lot about a man or woman by their alcohol or drug of choice. Time to look more closely at the Bonehunters’ latest members, maybe work up something like a profile of their gumption. He tugged loose the first stopper.
‘He made us puke,’ said Rumjugs.
‘He makes all of us do that,’ Kisswhere replied. ‘Now, angle that peg out a bit before your sister starts pounding it.’
‘She ain’t my sister.’
‘Yes she is. We all are, now. That’s what being a soldier is all about. Sisters, brothers.’
Sweetlard hefted the wooden mallet. ‘So the officers, they’re like, parents?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Well, if your parents were demented, deluded, corrupt, useless or sadistic, or any combination of those, then yes, officers are just like them.’
‘That’s not always so,’ said Corporal Pravalak Rim, arriving with a bundle of groundsheets. ‘Some officers know what they’re about.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with knowing what they’re about, Rim,’ said Kisswhere.
‘You’re right, Kiss, it comes down to do you take their orders when things get nasty? That’s what it comes down to.’ He dropped two of the rolled-up canvas sheets. ‘Put these inside, laid out nice and flat. Oh, and check out if there’s any slope in the ground-you want your heads higher than your feet or your dreams will get wild and you’ll wake up with an exploding headache-’
‘They’re going to do that anyway,’ observed Kisswhere. ‘Can’t you smell ’em?’
Rim scowled and pulled the mallet from Sweetlard’s hands. ‘You lost your mind, Kiss? She swings this and she’ll crush the other one’s hands.’
‘Well, but then, one less dragging us down on the march.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Not really. So I wasn’t thinking. I’m no good being in charge of people. Here, you take over. I’m going into the city to drag Skulldeath back out here, out of Hellian’s clutches, I mean.’
As she walked off, Rumjugs licked her plump lips. ‘Corporal Rim?’
‘Aye?’
‘You got a soldier in your squad named Skulldeath?’
Rim smiled. ‘Oh yeah, and wait till you meet him.’
‘I don’t like the name he gave me,’ muttered Twit. ‘I mean, I tried looking at all this in the right spirit, you know? So it feels less like a death sentence. Made myself look all eager, and what does he do? He calls me Twit.’
Ruffle patted him on an arm. ‘Don’t like your name? That’s fine. Next time Captain Lieutenant Master Sergeant Kindly Pores comes by, we’ll tell him that Sergeant Twit drowned in a sop bucket, but his brother showed up and his name is… well? What name do you want?’
Twit frowned. He scratched his head. He stroked his moustache. He squinted. He shrugged. ‘I have t’think on it, I think.’
Ruffle smiled sweetly. ‘Let’s see if I can help you some. You an Indebted?’
‘I am. And it wasn’t fair at all, Ruffle. I was doing fine, you see, living good, even. Had a pretty wife who I always figured was on the thick side, thicker than me, I mean, which was perfect, since it put me in charge and I like being in charge-’
‘Don’t let anybody know that. Not here.’
‘Oh, so I already messed up, then.’
‘No you didn’t. That was your drowned brother.’
‘What? By the Errant he’s drowned-but, how did you hear about that? Hold on, wait! Oh, I get it. Right. Hah, that’s perfect.’
‘So you was doing fine.’
‘Huh? Yes, that’s just it. I was doing good. In fact, business was good enough so that I made some investments-first time in my life, some real investments. Construction. Not my area, but-’
‘Which was? Your area, I mean?’
‘Made and sold oil lamps, the big temple ones. Mostly bronze or copper, sometimes glazed clay.’
‘And then you invested in the building trade.’
‘And it all went down. Just before you all arrived. All went down. I lost everything. And my wife, why, she told me she’d only been waiting around until somebody better and richer showed up. So off she went, too.’ He wiped at his face. ‘Thought about killing myself, but I couldn’t figure out the best way. And then it hit me-join the army! But not the Letherii army, since the new King’s not looking to start any wars, is he? Besides, I’d probably get stationed here in the city and there I’d be, seeing all the people I once knew and thought my friends, and they’d be pretending I wasn’t even there. And then I heard you Malazans was marching into a war-’
‘Really? First I’ve heard of that.’
‘Well, something like that. The thing was, it hit me then that maybe it wasn’t a place to just up and get myself killed. No, it was a place where I could start over. Only’-and he pounded his thigh-‘first thing I do is mess up. Some new beginning!’
‘You’re fine,’ said Ruffle, grunting softly as she climbed to her feet. ‘Twit was the one who messed up, right?’
‘What? Oh, that’s right!’
‘I think maybe I come up with a new name for you,’ she said, looking down at him where he squatted behind his bundled kit. ‘How does Sunrise sound to you?’
‘Sunrise?’
‘Aye. Sergeant Sunrise. New beginnings, just like dawn breaking on the horizon. And every time you hear it out loud, you’ll be reminded of how you’ve begun again. Fresh. No debts, no disloyal friends, no cut-and-run wives.’
He suddenly straightened and impulsively hugged her. ‘Thanks, Ruffle. I won’t forget this. I mean it. I won’t.’
‘That’s nice. Now, spill out your bowl and spoon. Supper beckons.’
They found Brys Beddict standing on one of the canal bridges, the one closest to the river. He was leaning on the stone railing, eyes on the water flowing beneath the span.
Cuttle tugged on Fiddler’s arm as they were about to step on to the bridge. ‘What’s he doing?’ he whispered. ‘Looks like-’
‘I know what it looks like,’ Fiddler replied, grimacing. ‘But I don’t think it’s that. Come on.’
Brys glanced over as they approached, and straightened. ‘Good evening to you, soldiers.’
‘Commander Beddict,’ said Fiddler, nodding. ‘We’ve got ourselves a problem out in the camp, sir. That sweating ague, from the mosquitoes-got people falling ill everywhere, and our healers are dropping from exhaustion and making no headway.’
‘The Shivers, we call it,’ said Brys. ‘There’s a well, an imperial well, about half a league north of your camp. The water is drawn up by a sort of pump based on a mill. One of Bugg’s inventions. In any case, that water is filled with bubbles and rather tart to the taste, and it is the local treatment for the Shivers. I will dispatch teams to deliver casks to your camp. How many of your fellow soldiers have sickened?’
‘Two, maybe three hundred. With more every day, sir.’
‘We’ll start with five hundred casks-you need to get everyone drinking from them, as it may also possess some preventative properties, although no one has been able to prove that. I will also dispatch our military healers to assist your own.’
‘Thank you, sir. It’s been our experience that most of the time it’s the locals who get sick when foreigners arrive from across the seas. This time it’s proved the other way round.’
Brys nodded. ‘I gather that the Malazan Empire was predicated on expansion, the conquering of distant territories.’
‘Just a bit more rabid than your own Letherii expansion, sir.’
‘Yes. We proceeded on the principle of creep and crawl-that’s how our brother Hull described it, anyway. Spreading like a slow stain, until someone in the beleaguered tribe stood up and took notice of just what was happening, and then there’d be war. A war we justified at that point by claiming we were simply protecting our pioneering citizens, our economic interests, our need for security.’ His smile was sour. ‘The usual lies.’
Fiddler leaned on the railing beside Brys, and after a moment Cuttle did the same. ‘I remember a landing on one of the more remote of the Strike Islands. We weren’t assaulting, just making contact-the big island had capitulated by then. Anyway, the locals could muster about two hundred warriors, and there they were, looking out on a fleet of transports groaning with five thousand hardened marines. The old Emperor preferred to win without bloodshed, when he could. Besides, all of us, standing at the rails-sort of like we’re doing right now-well, we just pitied them.’
‘What happened?’ Cuttle asked.
‘The local chief gathered together a heap of trinkets on the beach, basically making himself look rich while at the same time buying our goodwill. It was a brave gesture, because it impoverished him. I don’t think he was expecting any reciprocal gesture from Admiral Nok. He just wanted us to take it and then go away.’ Fiddler paused, scratching at his beard, remembering those times. Neither Brys nor Cuttle prodded him to resume, but, with a sigh, he went on. ‘Nok had his orders. He accepts the gift. And then has us deliver on to that beach a golden throne for the chief, and enough silks, linens and wool to clothe every living person on that island-he gave the chief enough to turn around and be generous to his people. I still remember his face, the look on it…’ When he wiped at his eyes, only Brys held his gaze on Fiddler. Cuttle looked away, as if embarrassed.
‘That was a fine thing to do,’ said Brys.
‘Seemed that way. Until the locals started getting sick. Something in the wool, maybe. Fleas, a contagion. We didn’t even find out, not for days-we stayed away, giving the chief time and all that, and the village was mostly behind a fringe of thick mangroves. And then, one afternoon, a lookout spied a lone villager, a girl, staggering out on to the beach. She was covered in sores-that sweet, once smooth skin-’ He stopped, shoulders hunching. ‘Nok moved fast. He threw every Denul healer we had on to that island. We saved about two-thirds of them. But not the chief. To this day, I wonder what he thought as he lay dying-if an instant of calm spread out to flatten the storm of his fever, a single instant, when he thought that he had been betrayed, deliberately poisoned. I wondered if he cursed us all with his last breath. Had I been him, I know I would have. Whether we meant to or not-I mean, our intentions didn’t mean a damned thing. Offered no absolution. They rang hollow then and they still do.’
After a long moment, Brys returned his attention to the canal waters below. ‘This all flows out to the river, and the river into the sea, and out in the sea, the silts collected back here end up raining down to the bottom, down on to the valleys and plains that know no light. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘souls take the same journey, and they rain down, silent, blind. Lost.’
‘You two keep this up,’ Cuttle said in a growl, ‘and I’ll do the jumping.’
Fiddler snorted. ‘Sapper, listen to me. It’s easy to listen and even easier to hear wrongly, so pay attention. I’m no wise man, but in my life I’ve learned that knowing something-seeing it clearly-offers no real excuse for giving up on it. And when you put what you see into words, give ’em to somebody else, that ain’t no invitation neither. Being optimistic’s worthless if it means ignoring the suffering of this world. Worse than worthless. It’s bloody evil. And being pessimistic, well, that’s just the first step on the path, and it’s a path that might take you down Hood’s road, or it takes you to a place where you can settle into doing what you can, hold fast in your fight against that suffering. And that’s an honest place, Cuttle.’
‘It’s the place, Fiddler,’ said Brys, ‘where heroes are found.’
But the sergeant shook his head. ‘That don’t matter one way or the other. It might end up being as dark as the deepest valley at the bottom of your ocean, Commander Beddict. You do what you do, because seeing true doesn’t always arrive in a burst of light. Sometimes what you see is black as a pit, and it just fools you into thinking that you’re blind. You’re not. You’re the opposite of blind.’ And he stopped then, as he saw that he’d made both hands into fists, the knuckles pale blooms in the gathering night.
Brys Beddict stirred. ‘I will see the crews sent out to the imperial well tonight, and I will roust my healers at once.’ He paused, and then added, ‘Sergeant Fiddler. Thank you.’
But Fiddler could find nothing to be thanked for. Not in his memories, not in the words he had spoken to these two men.
When Brys had left, he swung round to Cuttle. ‘There you have it, soldier. Now maybe you’ll stop worshipping the Hood-damned ground I walk on.’ And then he marched off.
Cuttle stared after him, and then, with a faint shake of his head, followed his sergeant.
Is there anything more worthless than excuses?
EMPEROR KELLANVED
It was the task of a pregnant woman’s sister or, if there were none, the nearest woman by blood, to fashion from clay a small figurine, its form a composite of spheres, and to hold it in waiting for the child’s birth. Bathed in the blood and fluids of the issue, the human-shaped vessel was then ritually bound to the newborn, and that binding would remain until death.
Fire was the Brother and Husband Life-Giver of the Elan, the spirit-god with its precious gifts of light, warmth and protection. Upon dying, the Elan’s figurine-now the sole haven of his or her soul-was carried to the flames of the family hearth. The vessel, in its making, had been left faceless, because fire greeted every soul in the same manner; when choosing, it favoured not by blunt features-which were ever a mask to truth-but upon the weighing of a life’s deeds. When the clay figurine-born of Water, Sister and Wife Life-Giver-finally shattered in the heat, thus conjoining the spirit-gods, the soul was embraced by the Life-Giver, now the Life-Taker. If the figurine did not break, then the soul had been rejected, and no one would ever again touch that scorched vessel. Mourning would cease. All memory of the fallen would be expunged.
Kalyth had lost her figurine-a crime so vast that she should have died of shame long ago. It was lying somewhere, half-buried in grasses, perhaps, or swallowed up beneath drifts of dust or ashes. It was probably broken, the binding snapped-and so her soul would find no haven when she died. Malign spirits would close in on her and devour her piece by piece. There would be no refuge. No judgement by the Life-Giver.
Her people, she had since realized, had possessed grand notions of their own importance. But then, she was sure it was the same for every people, every tribe, every nation. An elevation of self, blistering in its conceit. Believers in their own immortality, their own eternal abiding, until came the moment of sudden, crushing revelation. Seeing the end of one’s own people. Identity crumbling, language and belief and comfort withering away. Mortality arriving like a knife to the heart. A moment of humbling, the anguish of humility, all the truths once thought unassailable now proved to be fragile delusions.
Kneeling in the dust. Sinking still lower. Lying prostrate in that dust, pallid taste on the tongue, a smell of desiccated decay stinging the nostrils. Was it any wonder that all manner of beasts enacted the mission of surrender by lying prone on the ground, in a posture of vulnerability, beseeching mercy from a merciless nature: the throat-bared submission to knives and fangs dancing with the sun’s light? Playing out the act of the victim-she recalled once seeing a bull bhederin, javelin-pierced half a dozen times, the shafts clattering and trailing, the enormous creature fighting to remain standing. As if to stand was all that mattered, all that defined it as being still alive, as being worthy of life, and in its red-rimmed eyes such stubborn defiance. It knew that as soon as it fell, its life was over.
And so it stood, weeping blood, on a crest of land, encircled by hunters who understood enough to keep their distance, to simply wait, but it refused them, refused the inevitable, for an extraordinary length of time-the hunters would tell this tale often round the flickering flames, they would leap upright to mimic its wounded defiance, wide of stance, shoulders hunched, eyes glaring.
Half a day, and then the evening, and come the next dawn and there the beast remained, upright but finally, at last, lifeless.
There was triumph in that beast’s struggle, something that made its death almost irrelevant, a desultory, diminished arrival-no capering glee this time.
She thought she might weep now, for that bhederin, for the power of its soul so cruelly drained from its proud flesh. Even the hunters had been silent, crowding close in the chill dawn light to reach out and touch that matted hide; and the gaggle of children who waited to help with the butchering, why, like Kalyth herself, they sat round-eyed, strangely frightened, maybe a little stained with guilt, too, come to that. Or, more likely, Kalyth was alone in feeling that sentiment-or had she felt it at all? Was it not more probable that this guilt, this shame, belonged to her now-decades and decades later? And, in fact, that the beast had come to symbolize something else, something new and exclusively her own?
The death of a people.
And still she stood.
Still she stood.
Yet at this moment they were all sunk down into the grasses, up against boulders, and her face was pressed to the ground, smelling dust and her own sweat. The K’Chain Che’Malle seemed to have virtually vanished. Motionless, reminding her of coiled serpents or lizards basking on flat rocks, their hides growing mottled to mimic their immediate surroundings.
They were all hiding.
From what? What on this useless, lifeless ruin of a landscape could drive them to such caution?
Nothing. Nothing on the land at all. No… we are hiding from clouds.
Clouds, a dozen thunderheads arrayed in a row on the horizon to the southwest, five or more leagues distant.
Kalyth did not understand. So vast was her incomprehension that she could not even conjure any questions for her companions, nothing to send skirling up from her pit of fears and anxieties. What she could see of those distant storms told her of lightning, hail and walls of impenetrable dust-but the front edged no closer, not in all this time of waiting, of hiding. She felt broken by her own ignorance.
Clouds.
She wondered if the winged Assassin drifted somewhere high overhead. Exposed, vulnerable to rushing winds-but down here, the calm was uncanny. The very air seemed to be cowering, breath held, and even the insects had taken to the ground.
The earth trembled beneath her, a sudden barrage rolling in waves. She could not be certain if she was hearing that thunder, or simply feeling it. The shock set her heart hammering-she had never before heard such unceasing violence. Prairie storms were swift runners, knots of rage racing across the landscape, flattening grasses and hide tents, whipping flaring embers into the air, buffeting the humped walls of yurts. The howl rose to a shriek, and then died as quickly as it had come, and outside the lumps of hail glistened grey in the strange light as they melted. The storms of her memory were nothing like this, and the metallic taste of fear bit down on her tongue.
The K’Chain Che’Malle, her terrifying guardians, clung to the ground like rush-beaten curs.
And the thunder shook the earth again and again. Teeth clenched, Kalyth forced herself to tilt up her head. Dust had lifted like mists over the land. Through the brown veil she could make out incessant argent flashes beneath the bruised storm front, but the clouds themselves remained dark, like blind motes staining her eyes. Where were the spikes of lightning? Every blossom seemed to erupt from the ground, and now she could see the sickly glow of fires-the blasted plain was alight.
Gasping, Kalyth buried her head in her arms. A part of her sank back, like a bemused, faintly disgusted witness, as the rest of her trembled in terror-were these feelings her own? Or waves emanating from the K’Chain Che’Malle, from Gunth Mach and Sag’Churok and the others? But no, it was more likely that she was but witness to simple caution, bizarre, yes, and extreme-but they did not shiver or claw at the ground, did they? They were so still they might have been dead. As perfect in their repose as she-
Taloned hands snatched her up. She shrieked-the K’Chain Che’Malle were suddenly running, low, faster than she had thought possible-and she hung in the grip of Gunth Mach like a bhederin flank torn from a kill.
They fled the storm. North and east. For Kalyth, a blurred passage, nightmarish in her helplessness. Tufts of yellow grass spun past like tumbled balls of dull fire. Sweeps of bedded cobbles, sinkholes of water-worn gravel, and then low, flattened hills of layered slate. Stunted, leafless trees, a scattered knee-high forest, dead and every branch and twig spun with spider’s webs. And then through, on to a pan of parched clay crusted with ridged knuckles of salt. The heavy thump of three-toed reptilian feet, the heave and drumming creak of breaths drawn and then hissed loose in whistling gusts.
A sudden skidding halt-K’ell Hunters weaving outward, pace falling off-they had ascended a hill, and had come face to face with the Shi’gal Assassin. Towering, wings folded like spiked, barbed shoulders framing the wide-snouted head-the glisten of eyes above and below that needle-fanged mouth.
Kalyth’s breath caught-she could feel its rage, its contempt.
Gunth Mach’s arms sagged down, and the Destriant twisted to find purchase with her feet.
Kor Thuran and Rythok stood to either side, ten or more paces distant, heads lowered and chests heaving, swords dug point-first into the hard stony earth. Positioned directly before Gu’Rull was Sag’Churok, standing motionless, almost defiant. Unashamed, hide gleaming with exuded oils.
The bitter reek of violence swirled in the air.
Gu’Rull tilted his head, as if amused by Sag’Churok, but his four eyes held unwavering on the huge K’ell Hunter, as if not too proud to admit to a measure of respect. This was, to Kalyth, a startling concession. The Shi’gal Assassin was almost twice Sag’Churok’s height, and even without swords in his hands his reach matched that of the K’ell Hunter’s weapon-extended arms.
This thing was bred to kill, born to an intensity of intention that beggared the K’ell Hunters’, that would make the Ve’Gath Soldiers appear clumsy and thick.
She knew he could kill them all, here, now, with barely a lone drip of oil to mar his sleek, glistening hide. She knew it in her soul.
Gunth Mach released Kalyth, and she stumbled, needing both hands before she managed to regain her feet. ‘Listen,’ she said, surprised to find that her own voice was steady, if a little raw, ‘I knew a camp dog, once. Could face down an okral. But at the first rise of wind, or the mutter of thunder, it was transformed into a quivering wreck.’ She paused, and then said, ‘Assassin. They took me away from that storm, at my command.’ She forced herself closer, and coming up alongside Sag’Churok she reached out and set a hand against the Hunter’s flank.
Sag’Churok need not have moved to the shove she gave him-she did not possess the strength for that-but he stepped aside none the less, so that she now stood directly in front of Gu’Rull. ‘Be the okral, then.’
The head tilted further as the Assassin regarded her.
She flinched when his huge wings snapped open, and staggered back a step as they swept down to buffet the air-a minor thunder as if mocking what lay far behind them now-before he launched himself skyward, tail snaking in his wake.
Swearing under her breath, Kalyth turned to Gunth Mach. ‘It’s almost dusk. Let us camp here-every one of my bones feels rattled loose and my head aches.’ And that was not true fear, was it? Not blind terror. So I tell myself, words that give comfort.
And we know how useful those ones are.
Zaravow of the Snakehunter, a minor sub-clan of the Gadra, was a huge man, a warrior of twenty-four years, and for all his bulk he was known to be quick, lithe in battle. The Snakehunter had once been among the most powerful political forces, not just among the Gadra, but throughout all the White Face Clans, until the war with the Malazans. Zaravow’s own mother had died to a Bridgeburner’s quarrel in the One Eye Cat Mountains, in the chaos of a turned ambush. The death had broken his father, dragged him down to a trader town where he wallowed for six months, drinking himself into a state of such bedraggled pathos that Zaravow had with his own hands suffocated the wretch.
The Malazans had assailed the Snakehunter, until, its power among the Barghast shattered, its encampment was forced to fend on its own, leagues from Stolmen’s own. Snakehunter warriors lost mates to other clans, an incessant bleeding away that nothing could stem. Even Zaravow, who had once claimed three wives from rivals he’d slain, was now down to one, and she had proved barren and spent all her time with widows complaining about Zaravow and every other warrior who had failed the Snakehunter.
Rubbish littered the paths between rows of tents. The herds were scrawny and ill-kempt. Bitterness and misery were a plague. Young warriors were getting drunk every night on D’ras beer, and in the mornings they huddled round smouldering hearths, shivering in the aftermath of the yellow bitterroot they’d become addicted to. Even now, when the word had gone out that the Gadra would soon unleash war upon the liars and cheaters of this land, the mood remained sour and sickly.
This great journey across the ocean, through foul warrens with all those lost years heaving up one upon another, had been a mistake. A terrible, grievous mistake.
Zaravow knew that Warleader Tool had once been an ally of the Malazans, and if he had possessed greater influence in the council, he would have insisted that Tool be rejected-and more, flayed alive. His beget throat-slit. His wife raped and the toes clipped from her feet, so making her a Hobbler, lower than a camp cur, forced to lift her backside to any man at any time and in any place. And all of that, well, even then it would not be enough.
He had been forced to apply his own deathmask this day-his damned wife was nowhere to be found among the five hundred yurts in the Snakehunter camp-and he was crouched in front of the cookfire, face thrust to the rising heat to hasten the hardening of the paint, when he saw her appear up on the goat trail of the hill to the north, walking loosely-maybe she was drunk, but no, that gait recalled to him something else-in the mornings long ago now, after a night of sex-as if in spreading her legs she untied all the knots inside her.
And a moment later he saw, farther up the trail, Benden Ledag, that scrawny young warrior with the quick smile that always made Zaravow want to smash his even white teeth into bloody stumps. Tall, thin, awkward, with hands big as the wooden paddles used to pattern grain pots.
And, in a flash, Zaravow knew what those hands had been doing a short time earlier. And he knew, as well, the mocking secret behind the smile he offered Zaravow every time their paths crossed.
Not widows after all, for his wife. She’d moved past complaining about her husband. She’d decided to shame him.
He would make the shame hers.
This day, then, he would challenge Benden. He would cut the bastard to pieces, with his wife right there in the crowd, a witness, and she would know-everyone would know-that her punishment would follow. He’d take the front half of her feet, a single merciful chop of his cutlass, once, twice. And then he’d rape her. And then he’d throw her out and all his friends would take their turn. They’d fill her. Her mouth, the places between her thighs and cheeks. Three could take her all at once-
Breath hissed from his nostrils. He was growing hard.
No, there would be time for that later. Zaravow unsheathed his cutlass and worked a thumb crossways, back and forth down the cutting edge. The iron lived for the blood it would soon drink. He’d never liked Benden anyway.
He rose, adjusting his patchy bhederin half-cloak with a rippling shrug of his broad shoulders, and leaned the cutlass against the side of his right leg as he worked the chain gauntlets on to his hands.
His wife, he saw from the corner of his eye, had seen him, had halted at the last low ridge girdling the hill, and was watching. With sudden, icy comprehension. Hearing her shout back up the hill, he collected his cutlass and, mind blackening with rage, wheeled round-no, that rutting shit wasn’t going to get away-
But her screams were not being flung back at Benden. And she was still facing the camp, and even at this distance Zaravow could see her terror.
Behind him, other voices rose in scattered alarm.
Zaravow spun.
The bank of storm clouds filled half the sky-he had not even seen their approach-why, he could have sworn-
Dust descended like the boles of enormous columns beneath each of at least a dozen distinct thunderheads, and those grey, impenetrable pillars formed a cordon that was marching straight for the camp.
Zaravow stared, mouth suddenly dry.
As the base of those pillars began to dissolve, revealing-
Some titles were worthy of pride, and Sekara, wife to Warchief Stolmen and known to all as Sekara the Vile, was proud of hers. She would burn to the touch and everyone knew it, knew the acid of her sweat, the vitriol of her breath. Wherever she walked, the path was clear, and when the sun’s light cut upon her, someone would always move to stand so that blessed shade settled over her. The tough gristle that would make her gums bleed was chewed first by someone else. The paint she used to awaken her husband’s Face of Slaying was ground from the finest pigments-by someone else’s hand-and all of this was what her vileness had won her.
Sekara’s mother had taught her daughter well. The most rewarding ways of living-rewarding in the sense of personal gain, which was all that truly counted-demanded a ruthlessness in the manipulation of others. All that was needed was a honed intelligence and an eye that saw clearly every weakness, every possible advantage to exploit. And a hand that did not hesitate, ever, to deliver pain, to render punishment for offences real or fabricated.
By how she was seen, by all that she had made of herself, she was a presence that could now slink into the heads of every Gadran, vicious as a wardog patrolling the perimeter of the camp, cruel as an adder in the bedding. And this was power.
Her husband’s power was less subtle, and because it was less subtle, it was not nearly as efficient as her own. It could not work the language of silent threat and deadly promise. Besides, he was as a child in her hands; he had always been, from the very first, and that would never change.
She was regal in her attire, bedecked in gifts from the most talented among the tribe’s weavers, spinners, seamstresses, bone and antler carvers, jewel-smiths and tanners-gifts that were given to win favour, or deflect Sekara’s envy. When one had power, after all, envy ceased to be a flaw of character; instead, it became a weapon, a threat; and Sekara worked it well, so that now she was counted among the wealthiest of all the White Face Barghast.
She walked, back straight, head held high, reminding all who saw her that the role of Barghast Queen belonged to her, though that bitch Hetan might hold to that title-one that she refused, stupid woman. No, Sekara was known to all as its rightful bearer. By virtue of breeding, and by the brilliance of her cruelty. And were her husband not a pathetic oaf, why, they would have long since wrested control away from that bestial Tool and his insatiable slut of a wife.
The cape of sewn hides she wore trailed in the dust behind her as she traversed the stony path, slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the X-shaped crucifixes lining the ridge. It would not do to glance up at the skinless lumps hanging from the crosses-the now lifeless Akrynnai, D’ras and Saphii traders, the merchants and horsemongers, their stupid, useless guards, their fat mates and dough-fleshed children. In this stately promenade, Sekara was simply laying claim to the expression of her power. To walk this path, eyes fixed straight ahead, was enough proof of possession. Yes, she owned the tortured deaths of these foreigners.
She was Sekara the Vile.
Soon, she would see the same done to Tool, Hetan and their spoiled runts. So much had already been achieved, her allies in place and waiting for her command.
She thought back to her husband, and the soft ache between her legs throbbed with the memory of his mouth, his tongue, that made obvious his abject servility. Yes, she made him work, scabbing his knees, and gave him nothing in return. The insides of her thighs were caked in white paint, and she had slyly revealed that detail to her handmaidens when they dressed her-and now word would be out once again among all the women. Chatter and giggles, snorts of contempt. She’d left her husband hastily reapplying the paint on his face.
She noted the storm clouds to the west, but they were too distant to be of any concern, once she had determined that they were not drawing any closer. And through the thick soles of her beaded bhederin moccasins, she felt nothing of the thunder. And when a pack of camp dogs cut across just ahead, she saw in their cowering gaits nothing more than their natural fear of her, and was content.
Hetan lounged in the yurt, watching her fat imp of a son scrabbling about on the huge wardog lying on the cheap Akryn rug they had traded for when it finally became obvious that child and dog had adopted each other. She was ever amazed at the dog’s forbearance beneath the siege of grubby, tugging, poking and yanking hands-the beast was big even by Barghast standards, eight or nine years old and scarred with the vicious scraps for dominance among the pack-no other dog risked its ire these days. Even so, permitting the rank creature into the confines of the yurt was virtually unheard of-another one of her husband’s strange indulgences. Well, it could foul up that ugly foreign rug, and it seemed it knew the range of this unnatural gift and would push things no further.
‘Yes,’ she muttered to it, and saw how its ears tilted in her direction, ‘a fist to your damned head if you try for any real bedding.’ Of course, if she raised a hand to the dog, her son would be the one doing all the howling.
Hetan glanced over as the hide flap was tugged aside and Tool, ducking to clear the entrance, entered the yurt. ‘Look at your son,’ she accused. ‘He’s going to poke out the damn thing’s eyes. And get a hand bitten off, or worse.’
Her husband squinted down at the squirming toddler, but it was clear he was too distracted to offer anything in the way of comment. Instead, he crossed the chamber and collected up his fur-bound flint sword.
Hetan sat straighter. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I am not sure,’ he replied. ‘On this day, Barghast blood has been spilled.’
She was on her feet-noting that the hound lifted its head at the sudden tension-and, taking her scabbarded cutlasses, she followed Tool outside.
She saw nothing awry, barring the growing attention her husband garnered as he set out purposefully up the main avenue that bisected the encampment, heading westward. He still possessed some of the sensitivities of the T’lan Imass he had once been-Hetan did not doubt his assertion. Moving up alongside him, acutely aware of other warriors falling into their wake, she shot him a searching look, saw his sorrow stung afresh, his weariness furrowing deep lines on his brow and face.
‘One of the outlying clans?’
He grimaced. ‘There is no place on this earth, Hetan, where the Imass have not walked. That presence greets my eyes thick as fog, a reminder of ancient things, no matter where I look.’
‘Does it blind you?’
‘It is my belief,’ he replied, ‘that it blinds all of us.’
She frowned, unsure of his meaning. ‘To what?’
‘That we were not the first to do so.’
His response chilled her down in her bones. ‘Tool, have we found our enemy?’
The question seemed to startle him. ‘Perhaps. But…’
‘What?’
‘I hope not.’
By the time they reached the encampment’s western edge, at least three hundred warriors were following them, silent and expectant, perhaps even eager although they could know nothing of their Warleader’s intent. The sword in Tool’s hands had been transformed into a standard, a brandished sigil held so loosely, in a manner suggesting careless indifference, that it acquired the gravity of an icon-Onos Toolan’s deadly slayer, drawn forth with such reluctance-the promise of blood and war.
The far horizon was a black band soon to swallow the sun.
Tool stood staring at it.
Behind them the crowd waited amidst the rustle of weapons, but no one spoke a word.
‘That storm,’ she asked him quietly, ‘is it sorcery, husband?’
He was long in replying. ‘No, Hetan.’
‘And yet…’
‘Yes. And yet.’
‘Will you tell me nothing?’
He glanced at her and she was shocked at his ravaged expression. ‘What shall I say?’ he demanded in sudden anger. ‘Half a thousand Barghast are dead. Killed in twenty heartbeats. What do you want me to say to you?’
She almost recoiled at his tone. Trembling, she broke contact with his hard glare. ‘You have seen this before, haven’t you? Onos Toolan-say it plain!’
‘I will not.’
So many bonds forged between them, years of passion and the deepest of loves, all snapped with his denial. She reeled inside, felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘All that we have-you and me-all of it, does it mean nothing, then?’
‘It means everything. And so if I must, I will cut my tongue from my mouth, rather than reveal to you what I now know.’
‘We have our war, then.’
‘Beloved.’ His voice cracked on the word and he shook his head. ‘Dearest wife, forge of my heart, I want to run. With you, with our children. Run, do you hear me? An end to this rule-I do not want to be the one to lead the Barghast into this-do you understand?’ The sword fell at his feet and a shocked groan erupted from the mob behind them.
She so wanted to take him into her arms. To protect him, from all this, from the knowledge devouring him from the inside out. But he gave her no opening, no pathway back to him. ‘I will stand with you,’ she said, as the tears spilled loose and tracked down her cheeks. ‘I will always do so, husband, but you have taken away all my strength. Give me something, please, anything. Anything.’
He reached up to his own face and seemed moments from clawing deep gouges down its length. ‘If-if I am to refuse them. Your people, Hetan. If I am to lead them away from here, from this prophesied fate you are all so desperate to embrace, do you truly believe they will follow me?’
No. They will kill you. And our children. And for me, something far worse. In a low whisper she then asked, ‘Shall we flee, then? In the night, unseen by anyone?’
He lowered his hands and, eyes on the storm, offered up a bleak smile that lanced her heart. ‘I am to be the coward I so want to be? And I do, beloved, I so want to be a coward. For you, for our children. Gods below, for myself.’
How many admissions could so crush a man like this? It seemed that in these past few moments she had seen them all.
‘What will you do?’ she asked, for it seemed that her role in all of this had vanished.
‘Select for me a hundred warriors, Hetan. My worst critics, my fiercest rivals.’
‘If you will lead a war-party, why just a hundred? Why so few?’
‘We will not find the enemy, only what they have left behind.’
‘You will set fire to their rage. And so bind them to you.’
He flinched. ‘Ah, beloved, you misunderstand. I mean to set fire not to rage, but fear.’
‘Am I permitted to accompany you, husband?’
‘And leave the children? No. Also, Cafal will return soon, with Talamandas. You must keep them here, to await our return.’
Without another word, she turned about and walked down to the throng. Rivals and critics, yes, there were plenty of those. She would have no difficulty in choosing a hundred. Or, indeed, a thousand.
With the smoke of cookfires spreading like grey shrouds through the dusk, Onos Toolan led a hundred warriors of the White Face Barghast out from the camp, the head of the column quickly disappearing in the darkness beyond.
Hetan had chosen a raised ridge to watch them leave. Off to her right a massive herd of bhederin milled, crowded together as was their habit when night descended. She could feel the heat from their bodies, saw the plume of their breaths drifting in streams. The herds had lost their caution with an ease that left Hetan faintly surprised. Perhaps some ancient memory had been stirred to life, the muddled comprehension that such proximity to the two-legged creatures kept away wolves and other predators. The Barghast knew to exercise tact in culling the herd, quietly separating the beasts they would slay from all the others.
So too, she realized, were the Barghast scattered, pulled apart, but not by the malevolent intent of some outside force. No, they had done this to themselves. Peace delivered a most virulent poison to those trained as warriors. Some fell into indolence; others found enemies closer to hand. ‘Warrior, fix your gaze outward.’ An ancient saying among the Barghast. An admonition born of bitter experience, no doubt. Reminding her that little had changed among her people.
She looked away from the bhederin-but the column was well and truly gone, swallowed by the night. Tool had not waited long to set the league-devouring pace that made Barghast war-parties so dangerous to complacent enemies. Even in that, she knew her husband could run those warriors into the ground. Now that would humble those rivals.
Her thoughts about her own people, as the two thousand or so bhederin stood massed and motionless a stone’s throw away, had left her depressed, and the squabbling of the twins in the yurt only awaited her return before commencing once again, since the girls adored an audience. She was not quite ready for them. Too fragile with the battering she had received.
She missed the company of her brother with an intensity that ached in her chest.
The faintly lurid glow of the Jade Slashes drew her eyes to the south horizon. Lifting skyward to claw furrows across the breadth of the night-too easy to find omens beneath such heavenly violence; the elders had been bleating warnings for months now-and she suddenly wondered, with a faint catch of breath, if it had been too convenient to dismiss their dire mutterings as the usual disgruntled rubbish voiced by aching old men the world over. Change as the harbinger of disaster was an attitude destined to live for ever, feeding off the inevitable as it did and woefully blind to its own irony.
But some omens were just that. True omens. And some changes proved to be genuine disasters, and to stir sands already settled yielded shallow satisfaction.
When ruin is coming, we choose not to see it. We shift our focus, blurring the facts, the evidence before us. And we ready our masks of surprise, along with those of suffering and self-pity, and keep our fingers nimble for that oh-so-predictable cascade of innocence, that victim’s charade.
Before reaching for the sword. Because someone’s to blame. Someone is always to blame.
She spat into the gloom. She wanted to lie with a man this night. It almost did not matter who that man might be. She wanted her own method of escaping grim realities.
One thing she would never play, however, was that game of masks. No, she would meet the future with a knowing look in her eye, unapologetic, yet defying the prospect of her own innocence. No, be as guilty as everyone else, but announce the admission with bold courage. She would point no fingers. She would not reach for her weapons blazing with the lie of retribution.
Hetan found she was glaring at those celestial tears in the sky.
Her husband wanted to be a coward. So weakened by his love for her, for the children they shared, he would break himself to save them. He had, she realized, virtually begged her for permission to do just that. She had not been ready for him. She had failed in understanding what he sought from her.
Instead, I just kept asking stupid questions. Not understanding how each one tore out the ground beneath him. How he stumbled, how he fell again and again. My idiotic questions, my own selfish need to find something solid under my own feet-before deciding, before making bold judgement.
She had unknowingly cornered him. Refused his cowardice. She had, in fact, forced him out into that darkness, into leading his warriors to a place of truths-where he would seek to frighten them but already knowing-as she did-that he would fail.
And so we have our wish. We go to war.
And our Warleader stands alone in the knowledge that we will lose. That victory is impossible. Will he command with any less vigour? Will he slow the sword in his hands, knowing all that he knows?
Hetan bared her teeth with fierce, savage pride, and spoke to the jade talons in the sky. ‘He will not.’
They emerged in darkness, and a moment later relief flooded through Setoc. The blurred, swollen moon, the faint green taint limning the features of Torrent and Cafal, casting that now familiar sickly sheen on the metal fittings of the horse’s bit and saddle. Yet the skirl of stars overhead seemed twisted, subtly pushed-and it was a few heartbeats before she recognized constellations.
‘We are far to the north and east,’ said Cafal. ‘But not insurmountably so.’
The ghosts from the other realm had flooded the plain, flowing outward and growing ever more ephemeral, finally vanishing entirely from her senses. She felt that absence with a deepening anguish, a sense of loss warring with pleasure at their salvation. Living kin awaited many of them, but not, she was certain, all. There had been creatures in that other world’s past unlike anything she had seen or even heard of-limited as her experience was, to be sure-and they would find themselves as lost in this world as in the one they had fled.
A vast empty plain surrounded them, flat as an ancient seabed.
Torrent swung himself back into the saddle. She heard him sigh. ‘Tell me, Cafal, what do you see?’
‘It’s night-I can’t see much. We are on the northern edge of the Wastelands, I think. And so, around us, there is nothing.’
Torrent grunted, clearly amused by something in the Barghast’s reply.
Cafal nosed the bait. ‘What makes you laugh? What do you see, Torrent?’
‘At the risk of melodrama,’ he said, ‘I see the landscape of my soul.’
‘It is an ancient one,’ Setoc mused, ‘which makes you old inside, Torrent.’
‘The Awl dwelt here hundreds of generations ago. My ancestors looked out upon this very plain, beneath these same stars.’
‘I am sure they did,’ acknowledged Cafal. ‘As did mine.’
‘We have no memory of you Barghast, but no matter, I will not gainsay your claims.’ He paused for a time, and then spoke again, ‘it would not have been so empty back then, I imagine. More animals, wandering about. Great beasts that trembled the ground.’ He laughed again, but this time it was bitter. ‘We emptied it and called that success. Fucking unbelievable.’
With that he reached down to Setoc.
She hesitated. ‘Torrent, where will you ride from here?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It didn’t before. But I believe it does now.’
‘Why?’
She shook her head. ‘Not for you-I see nothing of the path awaiting you. No. For me. For the ghosts I have brought to this world. I am not yet quit of them. Their journey remains incomplete.’
He lowered his hand and studied her in the gloom. ‘You hold yourself responsible for their fate.’
She nodded.
‘I will miss you, I think.’
‘Hold a moment,’ said Cafal, ‘both of you. Setoc, you cannot wander off all alone-’
‘Have no fear,’ she cut in, ‘for I will accompany you.’
‘But I must return to my people.’
‘Yes.’ But she would say no more. She was home to a thousand hearts, and that blood still ran sizzling like acid in her soul.
‘I shall run at a pace you cannot hope to match-’
Setoc laughed. ‘Let us play this game, Cafal. When you catch up to me, we shall rest.’ She turned to Torrent. ‘I shall miss you as well, warrior, last of the Awl. Tell me, of all the women who hunted you, was there one you would have let snare Torrent of the Awl?’
‘None other than you, Setoc… in about five years from now.’
Flashing a bright smile at Cafal, she set off, fleet as a hare.
The Barghast grunted. ‘She cannot maintain such a pace for long.’
Torrent gathered his reins. ‘The wolves howl for her, Warlock. Chase her down, if you can.’
Cafal eyed the warrior. ‘Your last words to her,’ he said in a low voice, and then shook his head. ‘No matter, I should not have asked.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Torrent replied.
He watched Cafal find his loping jog, long legs taking him swiftly into Setoc’s wake.
The city seethed. Unseen armies struggled against the ravages of decay, gathered in unimaginable numbers to wage pitched battles with neglect. Leaderless and desperate, legions massing barely a mote of dust sent out scouts ranging far from the well-travelled tracks, into the narrowest of capillaries threading senseless stone. One such scout found a Sleeper, curled and motionless-almost lifeless-in a long abandoned rest chamber in the beneath-the-floor level of Feed. A drone, forgotten, mind so somnolent that the Shi’gal Assassin that had last stalked Kalse Rooted had not sensed its presence, thus sparing it from the slaughter that had drenched so many other levels.
The scout summoned kin and in a short time a hundred thousand soldiers swarmed the drone, forming sheets of glistening oil upon its scaled hide, seeping potent nectars into the creature’s body.
A drone was a paltry construct, difficult to work with, an appalling challenge to physically transform, to awaken with the necessary intelligence required to take command. A hundred thousand quickly became a million, and then a hundred million, soldiers dying once used up, hastily devoured by kin that then birthed anew, in new shapes with altered functions.
The drone’s original purpose had been as an excretor, producing an array of flavours to feed newborn Ve’Gath to increase muscle mass and bone density. It was fed in turn by armies serving the Matron as they delivered her commands-but this Matron had been late in the breeding of Ve’Gath. She had produced fewer than three hundred before the enemy manifested and battle was joined. The drone, therefore, was far from exhausted. This potential alone gave purpose to the efforts of the unseen armies, but the desperation belonged to another cause-exotic flavours now marred Kalse Rooted. Strangers had invaded and had thus far proved insensible to all efforts at conjoining.
At long last the drone stirred. Two newborn eyes opened, seven distinct lids peeling back in each one, and a mind that had known only darkness-for excretors had no need for sight-suddenly looked upon a realm both familiar and unknown. Old senses merged with the new ones, quickly reconfiguring the world. Lids flickered up and down, constructing an ever more complete comprehension-heat, current, charge, composition-and many more, few of which the ghost understood beyond vague, almost formless notions.
The ghost, who did not even know his own name, had been drawn away from his mortal companions, swept along on currents that none of them could sense-currents that defied his own efforts at description. In helpless frustration, he settled upon the familiar concepts of armies, legions, scouts, battles and war, though he knew that none of these was correct. Even to attribute life to such minuscule entities was quite probably wrong; and yet they conveyed meaning to him, or perhaps he was simply capable of stealing knowledge from the clamouring host of instructions that raced through all of Kalse Rooted in a humming buzz too faint for mortal ears.
And now he found himself looking down upon a drone, a K’Chain Che’Malle unlike any he had ever seen before. No taller than a grown male human, thin-limbed, with a mass of tentacles instead of fingers at the ends of those arms. The broad head bulged behind the eyes, and at the base of the skull. The slash of a mouth was that of a lizard, lined with multiple rows of fine, sharp fangs. The colour of the two large, oversized eyes was a soft brown.
He watched it twitch for a time, knowing the creature was simply exploring the extent of its transformation, unfurling its ungainly limbs, turning its head from side to side in rapid flickers as it caught new and strange flavours. He saw then its growing agitation, its fear.
The smell of unknown invaders. The drone was able to gather, enclose and then discard the information that belonged to feral orthen and grishol; and this permitted it to isolate the location of the invaders. Alive, yes. Distant, discordant sounds, multiple breaths, soft feet on the floor, fingers brushing mechanisms.
The flavours the drone had once fed to Ve’Gath were now turned upon itself. In time, it would increase in size and strength. If the strangers had not departed by then, the drone would have to kill them.
The ghost struggled against panic. He could not warn them. This creature, so flush now with necessities and enormous tasks-the great war against the deterioration of Kalse Rooted, the ghost assumed-could not but see the clumsy explorations of Taxilian, Rautos and the others as a threat. To be eradicated.
The drone, named Sulkit-this being a name derived from birth-month and status, indeed a name once shared by two hundred identical drones-now rose on its hind limbs, thin, prehensile tail slithering across the floor. Oils dripped from its slate-grey hide, pooled and then quickly vanished as the unseen army, emboldened, purified and enlivened by the commander it had itself created, dispersed to renew its war.
And the ghost withdrew, raced back to his companions.
‘If this was a mind,’ said Taxilian, ‘it has died.’ He ran his hand along the sleek carapace, frowning at the ribbons of flexible, clear glass rippling out from the iron dome. Was something flowing through that glass? He could not be certain.
Rautos rubbed his chin. ‘Truly, I do not see how you can tell,’ he said.
‘There should be heat, vibration. Something.’
‘Why?’
Taxilian scowled. ‘Because that would tell us it’s working.’
Breath barked a laugh behind them. ‘Does a knife talk? Does a shield drum? You’ve lost your mind, Taxilian. A city only lives when people are in it, and even then it’s the people doing the living, not the city.’
In the chamber they had just left, Sheb and Nappet bickered as they cleared rubbish from the floor, making room for everyone to sleep. They had climbed level after level and, even now, still more waited above them. But everyone was exhausted. A dozen levels below, Last had managed to kill a nest of orthen, which he had skinned and gutted, and he was now arranging the six scrawny carcasses on skewers, while off to one side bhederin dung burned in a stone quern, the fire’s heat slowly driving back the chilly, lifeless air. Asane was preparing herbs to feed into a tin pot filled with fresh water.
Bewildered, the ghost drifted among them.
Breath strode back into the chamber, eyes scanning the floor. ‘Time,’ she said, ‘for a casting of the Tiles.’
Anticipation fluttered through the ghost, or perhaps it was terror. He felt himself drawn closer, staring avidly as she drew out her collection of Tiles. Polished bone? Ivory? Glazed clay? All kinds, he realized, shifting before his eyes.
Breath whispered, ‘See? Still young. So much, so much to decide.’ She licked her lips, her hands twitching.
The others drew closer, barring Taxilian who had remained in the other room.
‘I don’t recognize none of them,’ said Sheb.
‘Because they’re new,’ snapped Breath. ‘The old ones are dead. Useless. These’-she gestured-‘they belong to us, just us. For now. And the time has come to give them their names.’ She raked them together in a clatter, scooped them up and held the Tiles in the enclosed bowl of her hands.
The ghost could see her flushed face, the sudden colour making her skin almost translucent, so that he could discern the faint cage of bones beneath. He saw her pulse through the finest vessels in her flesh, the rush and swish of blood in their eager circuit. He saw the sweat beading on her high brow, and the creatures swimming within it.
‘First,’ she said, ‘I need to remake some old ones. Give them new faces. The names may sound like ones you’ve heard before, but these are new anyway.’
‘How?’ demanded Sheb, still scowling. ‘How are they new?’
‘They just are.’ She sent the Tiles on to the floor. ‘No Holds, you see? Each one is unaligned, all of them are unaligned. That’s the first difference.’ She pointed. ‘Chance-Knuckles-but see how it’s at war with itself? That’s the truth of Chance right there. Fortune and Misfortune are mortal enemies. And that one: Rule-no throne, thrones are too obvious.’ She flipped that Tile. ‘And Ambition on the other side-they kill each other, you see?’ She began flipping more Tiles. ‘Life and Death, Light and Dark, Fire and Water, Air and Stone. Those are the old ones, remade.’ She swept those aside, leaving three remaining Tiles. ‘These are the most potent. Fury, and on its opposite side, Starwheel. Fury is just what it says. Blind, a destroyer of everything. Starwheel, that’s Time, but unravelled-’
‘Meaning what?’ Rautos asked, his voice strangely tight, his face pale.
Breath shrugged. ‘Before and after are meaningless. Ahead and behind, then and soon, none of them mean anything. All those words that try to force order and, uh, sequence.’ She shrugged again. ‘You won’t see Starwheel in the castings. You’ll just see Fury.’
‘How do you know?’
Her smile was chilling. ‘I just do.’ She pointed at the second to last Tile. ‘Root, and on the other side, Ice Haunt-they both seek the same thing. You get one or the other, never both. This last one, Blueiron there, that’s the sorcery that gives life to machines-it’s still strong in this place, I can feel it.’ She turned the Tile on to its other side. ‘Oblivion. Ware this one, it’s a curse. A demon. It eats you from the inside out. Your memories, your self.’ She licked her lips once more, this time nervously. ‘It’s very strong right now. And getting stronger… someone’s coming, someone’s coming to find us.’ She hissed suddenly and swept up the last Tiles. ‘We need-we need to feed Blueiron. Feed it!’
Taxilian spoke from the doorway. ‘I know, Breath. It is what I am trying to do.’
She faced him, teeth bared. ‘Can you taste this place?’
‘I can.’
From one side Asane whimpered, and then flinched as Nappet lashed out a foot to kick her. He would have done more but Last interposed himself between the two, arms crossed, eyes flat. Nappet sneered and turned away.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Rautos. ‘I taste nothing-nothing but dust.’
‘It wants our help,’ Taxilian announced.
Breath nodded.
‘Only I don’t know how.’
Breath held up a knife. ‘Open your flesh. Let the taste inside, Taxilian. Let it inside.’
Was this madness, or the only path to salvation? The ghost did not know. But he sensed a new flavour in the air. Excitement? Hunger? He could not be certain.
But Sulkit was on its way. Still gaunt, still weak. On its way, then, not to deliver slaughter.
The flavour, the ghost realized, was hope.
Some roads, once set out upon, reveal no possible path but forward. Every other track is blocked by snarls of thorns, steaming fissures or rearing walls of stone. What waits at the far end of the forward path is unknown, and since knowledge itself may prove a curse, the best course is simply to place one foot in front of the other, and think not at all of fate or the cruel currents of destiny.
The seven or eight thousand refugees trudging in Twilight’s wake were content with ignorance, even as darkness closed in as inexorable as a tide, even as the world to either side of the Road of Gallan seemed to lose all substance, fragments drifting away like discarded memories. Linked one to another by ropes, strands of netting, torn strips of cloth and hide-exhausted but still alive, far from terrible flames and coils of smoke-they need only follow their Queen.
Most faith was born of desperation, Yan Tovis understood that much. Let them see her bold, sure strides on this stony road. Let them believe she had walked this path before, or that by virtue of noble birth and title, she was cloaked with warm, comforting knowledge of the journey they had all begun, this flowing river of blood. My blood.
She would give them that comfort. And hold tight to the truth that was her growing terror, her surges of panic that left her undergarments soaked with chill sweat, her heart pounding like the hoofs of a fleeing horse-no, they would see none of that. Nothing to drive stark fear into them, lest in blind horror the human river spill out, pushed off the road, and in screams of agony find itself shredded apart by the cold claws of oblivion.
No, best they know nothing.
She was lost. The notion of finding a way off this road, of returning to their own world, now struck her as pathetically naïve. Her blood had created a gate, and now its power was thinning; with each step she grew weaker, mind wandering as if stained with fever, and even the babble of Pully and Skwish behind her was drifting away-their wonder, their pleasure at the gifts of Twilight’s blood had grown too bitter to bear.
Old hags no longer. Youth snatched back, the sloughing away of wrinkles, dread aches, frail bones-the last two witches of the Shake danced and sung as if snake-bitten, too filled with life to even take note of the dissolution closing in on all sides, nor their Queen’s slowing pace, her drunken weaving on the road. They were too busy drinking her sweet blood.
Forward. Just walk. Yedan warned you, but you were too proud to listen. You thought only of your shame. Your brother, Witchslayer. And, do not forget, your guilt. At the brutal reprieve he gave you. His perfect, logical solution to all of your problems.
The Watch is as he must be. Yet see how you hated his strength-but it was nothing more than hating your own weakness. Nothing more than that.
Walk, Yan Tovis. It’s all you need do-
With the sound of a sundered sail, the world tore itself wide open. The road dropped from beneath the two witches, then thundered and cracked like a massive spine as it slammed down atop rolling hills. Dust shot skyward, and sudden sunlight blazed down with blinding fire.
Pully staggered to where Twilight had collapsed, seeing the spatters of blood brown and dull on the road’s cracked, broken surface. ‘Skwish, y’damned fool! We was drunk! Drunk on ’er an now ye look!’
Skwish dragged herself loose from the half-dozen Shake who had tumbled into her. ‘Oh’s we in turble now-this anna Gallan! It’s the unnerside a Gallan! The unnerside! Iz she yor an dead, Pully? Iz she?’
‘Nearby, Skwish, nearby-she went on too long-we shoulda paid attention. Kept an eye on ’er.’
‘Get ’er back, Pully! We can’t be ’ere. We can’t!’
As the two now young women knelt by Yan Tovis, the mass of refugees was embroiled in its own chaotic recovery. Broken limbs, scattered bundles of possessions, panicked beasts. The hills flanking the road were denuded, studded with sharp outcrops. Not a tree in sight. Through the haze of dust, now drifting on the wind, the sky was cloudless-and there were three suns.
Yedan Derryg scanned his troop of soldiers, was satisfied that none had suffered more than bruises and scrapes. ‘Sergeant, attend to the wounded-and stay on the road-no one is to leave it.’
‘Sir.’
He then set out, picking his way round huddled refugees-wide-eyed islanders silent with fear, heads lifting and turning to track his passage. Yedan found the two captains, Pithy and Brevity, directing one of their makeshift squads in the righting of a toppled cart.
‘Captains, pass on the command for everyone to stay on the road-not a single step off it, understood?’
The two women exchanged glances, and then Pithy shrugged. ‘We can do that. What’s happened?’
‘It was already looking bad,’ Brevity said, ‘wasn’t it?’
‘And now,’ added Pithy, ‘it’s even worse. Three suns, for Errant’s sake!’
Yedan grimaced. ‘I must make my way to the front of the column. I must speak with my sister. I will know more when I return.’
He continued on.
The journey was cruel, as the Watch could not help but observe the wretched state of the refugees, islanders and Shake alike. He well comprehended the necessity of leaving the shore, and the islands. The sea respected them no longer, not the land, not the people clinging to it. His sister had no choice but to take them away. But she was also leading them. Ancient prophecies haunted her, demanding dread sacrifices-but her Shake were poor creatures for the most part. They did not belong in legends, in tales of hard courage and resolute defiance-he’d seen as much in the faces of the witches and warlocks he’d cut down. And he saw the same here, as he threaded through the crowds. The Shake were a diminished people, in numbers, in spirit. Generation upon generation, they had made themselves small, as if meekness was the only survival strategy they understood.
Yedan Derryg did not know if they were capable of rising again.
The islanders, he mused, might well prove more competent than the Shake, if Pithy and Brevity were any measure. He could use them. Letherii understood the value of adaptability, after all. And since these were the ones who had chosen Yan Tovis as their Queen, he could exploit that loyalty.
They needed an army. The two captains were right. And they were looking to him to lead it. That seemed plain enough. His task now was to convince his sister.
Of course, their paramount need at the moment was to leave this place. Before its residents found them.
Pushing clear of the last huddle of refugees he saw that a perimeter of sorts had been established by-he noted with a frown-two young women and a half-dozen Shake youths armed with fishing spears. The women were busy scratching furrows in the road with antler picks, spirals and wavy circles-fashioning wards, Yedan realized with a start-in the gap between the guards and a small tent surrounded by a rough palisade of carved poles.
Witching poles. Yedan Derryg walked up to the guards, who parted to let him pass-saving him the effort of beating the fools senseless-and halted before the women. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ he demanded. ‘Such rituals belong to Elder Witches, not their apprentices-where is my sister? In the tent? Why?’
The woman closest to him, curvaceous beneath her rags, her black hair glistening in the sunlight, placed two fingers beneath her large, dark eyes, and then smiled. ‘The Watch sees but remains blind, an yer blind an blind.’ Then she laughed.
Yedan narrowed his gaze, and then shot the other woman a second look.
This one straightened from etching the road. She lifted her arms as if to display herself-the tears and holes in her shirt revealing smooth flesh, the round fullness of her breasts. ‘Hungry, Witchslayer?’ She ran a hand through her auburn hair and then smiled invitingly.
‘See what her blood done t’us?’ the first one exclaimed. ‘Ya didn’t nearby kill us. Leff the two a us, an that made us rich wi’ ’er power, and see what it done?’
Yedan Derryg slowly scowled. ‘Pully. Skwish.’
Both women pranced the opening steps to the Shake Maiden Dance.
Growling under his breath, he walked between them, taking care not to scrape the patterns cut into the packed earth of the road.
The one he took to be Pully hurried up to his side. ‘Careful, ya fat walrus, these are highest-’
‘Wards. Yes. You’ve surrounded my sister with them. Why?’
‘She’s sleepin-don’t asturb ’er.’
‘I am the Watch. We need to speak.’
‘Sleeps!’
He halted, stared at the witch. ‘Do you know where we are?’
‘Do you?’
Yedan stared at her. Saw the tremor behind her eyes. ‘If not,’ he said, ‘the hold of the Liosan, then a neighbouring realm within their demesne.’
Pully flinched. ‘The Watch sees and is not blind,’ she whispered.
As he moved to continue to the tent the witch snapped out a hand to stay him. ‘Lissen. Not sleep. Nearby a coma-she didn’t know to slow ’er own blood, just let it pour out-nearby killt ’er.’
He ground his teeth, chewed silently for a moment, and then asked, ‘You bound her wounds?’
‘We did,’ answered Skwish behind them. ‘But mebbe we was too late-’
‘Too busy dancing.’
Neither woman replied.
‘I will look upon my sister.’
‘An then stay close,’ said Pully, ‘an bring up your soljers.’
Yedan pointed to one of the Shake guards. ‘Send that one back to Captains Pithy and Brevity. They are to take command of the rearguard with their company. Then have your lad lead my troop back here.’
Skwish turned away to comply with his commands.
They were flush, yes, these two witches. And frightened. Two forces he could use to ensure their cooperation. That and the guilt they must now be feeling, having drunk deep when-if not for Yedan’s slaying of the others-they would have but managed a sip with the rest shared out among scores of parched rivals. He would keep them down from now on, he vowed. Serving the Royal Family. ‘Pully,’ he now said. ‘If I discover you ever again withholding information from me-or my sister-I will see you burned alive. Am I understood?’
She paled and almost stepped back.
He stepped closer, permitting her no retreat. ‘I am the Watch.’
‘Aye. You are the Watch.’
‘And until the Queen recovers, I command this column-including you and Skwish.’
She nodded.
‘Make certain your sister witch understands.’
‘I will.’
He turned and made his way to the tent. Crouched at the entrance. He hesitated, thinking, and then reached out to tug aside the hide flap-enough to give him a view inside. Hot, pungent air gusted out. She was lying like a corpse, arms at her sides, palms up. He could just make out the black-gut stitchwork seaming the knife cuts. Reaching in, he took one of her bare feet in his hand. Cold, but he could detect the faintest of pulses. He set the foot down, closed the flap, and straightened.
‘Pully.’
She was standing where he’d left her. ‘Yes.’
‘She might not recover left just as she is.’
‘Na, she might not.’
‘She needs sustenance. Wine, meat. Can you force that into her without choking her?’
Pully nodded. ‘Need us a snake tube.’
‘Find one.’
‘Skwish!’
‘I heard.’
Yedan made his way back through the wards. Four horses were tethered to his sister’s supply wagon. He selected the biggest one, a black gelding with a white blaze on its forehead. The beast was unsaddled but bridled. He drew it out from the others and then vaulted on to its back.
Pully was watching him. ‘Can’t ride through the wards!’
‘I don’t mean to,’ he replied, gathering the reins.
The witch stared, baffled. ‘Then where?’
Yedan chewed for a time, and then brought his horse round to face the nearest hills.
Pully shrieked and then leapt to block his path. ‘Not off the road, ya fool!’
‘When I return,’ he said, ‘you will have her awake.’
‘Don’t be stupid! They might not find us at all!’
He thought about dismounting, walking up and cuffing her. Instead, he simply stared down at her, and then said in a low voice, ‘Now who is being the fool, witch? I go to meet them, and if need be, I will slow them down. Long enough for you to get my sister back on her feet.’
‘And then we wait for you?’
‘No. As soon as she is able, you will leave this realm. This time,’ he added, ‘you will help her. You and Skwish.’
‘Of course! We was just careless.’
‘When my troop arrives, inform my sergeant that they are to defend the Queen. Detail them to surround the tent-do not overcrowd them with your wards, witch.’
‘Hold to yourself, Witchslayer,’ said Pully. ‘Hold tight-if your mind wanders, for e’en an instant-’
‘I know,’ Yedan replied.
She moved to one side, then stepped close and set a hand upon the gelding’s head. ‘This one should do,’ she muttered with eyes closed. ‘Wilful, fearless. Keep it collected-’
‘Of that I know far more than you, witch.’
Sighing, she edged back. ‘A commander does not leave his command. A prince does not leave his people.’
‘This one does.’
He kicked his horse into motion. Hoofs thumped on to the hard-packed ground beyond the road.
This was dependent on his sister reviving-enough to lead them away from this infernal place-a prince must choose when he is expendable. Yedan understood the risk. If she did not awaken. If she died, then well and truly his leaving had damned his people-but then, if his sister did not recover, and quickly, then the entire column was doomed anyway. Yes, he could let his own blood, and the witches could take hold of it and do what must be done-but they would also try to enslave him-they could not help it, he knew. He was a man and they were women. Such things simply were. The greater danger was that they would lose control of the power in their hands-two witches, even ancient, formidable ones, were not enough. Ten or twenty were needed in the absence of a Queen to fashion a simulacrum of the necessary focus demanded upon the Road of Gallan. No, he could not rely on Pully and Skwish.
Skwish came up alongside her sister witch. They watched Yedan Derryg riding up the slope of the first hill. ‘That’s bad, Pully. A prince does not-’
‘This one does. Listen, Skwish, we got to be careful now.’
Skwish held up the snake tube. ‘If we left her t’ jus live or die like we planned afirst-’
‘He’ll know-he will cut her open an check.’
‘He ain’t comin’ back-’
‘Then we do need ’er alive, don we? We can’t use ’im like we planned-he’s too ken-he won’t let us take ’im-I lookt up inta his eyes, him on that ’orse, Skwish. His eyes an his eyes, an so I tell ya, he’s gonna be bad turble if he comes back.’
‘He won’t. An’ we can keep ’er weak, weak enough, I mean-’
‘Too risky. She needs t’get us out. We can try something later, once we’re all safe-we can take ’em down then. The one left or e’en both. But not this time, Skwish. Now, best go an feed ’er something. Start with wine, that’ll loosen ’er throat.’
‘I know what I’m about, Pully, leave off.’
The gelding had a broad back, making for a comfortable ride. Yedan rode at a canter. Ahead, the hills thickened with scrub, and beyond was a forest of white trees, branches like twisted bones, leaves so dark as to be almost black. Just before them and running the length of the wooded fringe rose dolmens of grey granite, their edges grooved and faces pitted with cup-shaped, ground-out depressions. Each stone was massive, twice the height of a grown man, and crowding the foot of each one that he could see were skulls.
He slowed his mount, reined in a half-dozen paces from the nearest standing stone. Sat motionless, flies buzzing round the horse’s flickering ears, and studied those grisly offerings. Cold judgement was never short of pilgrims. Alas, true justice had no reason to respect secrets, as those close-fisted pilgrims had clearly discovered. A final and fatal revelation.
Minute popping sounds in the air announced the approach of dread power, as the buzzing flies ignited in mid-flight, black bodies bursting like acorns in a fire. The horse shied slightly, muscles growing taut beneath Yedan, and then snorted in sudden fear.
‘Hold,’ Yedan murmured, his voice calming the beast.
Those of the royal line among the Shake possessed ancient knowledge, memories thick as blood. Tales of ancient foes, sworn enemies of the uncertain Shore. More perhaps than most, the Shake rulers understood that a thing could be both one and the other, or indeed neither. Sides possessed undersides and even those terms were suspect. Language itself stuttered in the face of such complexities, such rampant subtleties of nature.
In this place, however, the blended flavours of compassion were anathema to the powers that ruled.
Yet the lone figure that strode out from the forest was so unexpected that Yedan Derryg grunted as if he had been punched in the chest. ‘This realm is not yours,’ he said, fighting to control his horse.
‘This land is consecrated for adjudication,’ the Forkrul Assail said. ‘I am named Repose. Give me your name, seeker, that I may know you-’
‘Before delivering judgement upon me?’
The tall, ungainly creature, naked and weaponless, cocked his head. ‘You are not alone. You and your followers have brought discord to this land. Do not delay me-you cannot evade what hides within you. I shall be your truth.’
‘I am Yedan Derryg.’
The Forkrul Assail frowned. ‘This yields me no ingress-why is that? How is it you block me, mortal?’
‘I will give you that answer,’ Yedan replied, slipping down from the horse. He drew his sword.
Repose stared at him. ‘Your defiance is useless.’
Yedan advanced on him. ‘Is it? But, how can you know for certain? My name yields you no purchase upon my soul. Why is that?’
‘Explain this, mortal.’
‘My name is meaningless. It is my title that holds my truth. My title, and my blood.’
The Forkrul Assail shifted his stance, lifting his hands. ‘One way or another, I will know you, mortal.’
‘Yes, you will.’
Repose attacked, his hands a blur. But those deadly weapons cut empty air, as Yedan was suddenly behind the Forkrul Assail, sword chopping into the back of the creature’s elongated legs, the iron edge cutting between each leg’s two hinged knees, severing the buried tendons-Repose toppled forward, arms flailing.
Yedan chopped down a second time, cutting off the Assail’s left arm. Blue, thin blood sprayed on to the ground.
‘I am Shake,’ Yedan said, raising his sword once more. ‘I am the Watch.’
The sudden hiss from Repose was shortlived, as Yedan’s sword took off the top of the Forkrul Assail’s head.
He wasted little time. He could hear the pounding of hoofs. Vaulting on to his horse’s back, he collected the reins in one hand and, still, gripping his blue-stained sword, wheeled the beast round.
Five Tiste Liosan were charging towards him, lances levelled.
Yedan Derryg drove his horse straight for them.
These were scouts, he knew. They would take him down and then send one rider back to gather a punitive army-they would then ride to the column. Where they would slaughter everyone. These were the ones he had been expecting.
The line of standing stones lay to Yedan’s left. At the last moment before the gap between him and the Tiste Liosan closed, Yedan dragged his horse in between two of the stones. He heard a lance shatter and then snarls of frustration as the troop thundered past. The gelding responded with alacrity as he guided it back through the line, wheeling to come up behind the nearest Tiste Liosan-the one who’d snapped his lance on one of the dolmens and who was now reaching for his sword even as he reined in.
Yedan’s sword caught beneath the rim of his enamelled helm, slicing clean through his neck. The decapitated head spun to one side, cracking against a dolmen.
The Watch slapped the flat of his blade on the white horse’s rump, launching it forward in a lunge, and then, driving his heels into his own horse’s flanks, he pulled into the other horse’s wake.
The remaining four Liosan had wheeled in formation, out and away from the standing stones, and were now gathering for a second charge.
Their fallen comrade’s horse galloped straight for them, forcing the riders to scatter once more.
Yedan chose the Liosan nearest the dolmens, catching the man before he could right his lance. A crossways slash severed the scout’s right arm halfway between the shoulder and elbow, the edge cutting into and snapping ribs as Yedan’s horse carried him past the shrieking warrior.
A savage yank on the reins brought him up alongside another scout. He saw the woman’s eyes as she twisted round in her saddle, heard her snarled curse, before he drove the point of his sword into the small of her back, punching between the armour’s plates along the laced seam.
His arm was twisted painfully as in her death roll she momentarily trapped his sword, but he managed to tear the weapon free.
The other two riders were shouting to each other, and one pulled hard away from the fight, setting heels to his horse. The last warrior brought his mount round and lowered his lance.
Yedan urged his gelding into a thundering charge, but at an angle away from his attacker-in the direction of the fleeing scout. An instant’s assessment told him he would not catch the man. Instead he lifted himself upward, knees anchored tight to either side of the gelding’s spine. Drew back his arm and threw his sword.
The point slammed up and under the rider’s right arm, driven a hand’s breadth between his ribs, deep enough to sink into the lung. He toppled from his horse.
The last rider arrived, coming at Yedan from an angle. Yedan twisted to hammer aside the lashing blade of the lance, feeling it cleave through his vambrace and then score deep into the bones of his wrist. Pain seared up his arm.
He dragged his horse into the rider’s wake-the Liosan was pulling up. A mistake. Yedan caught up to him and flung himself on to the man’s back, dragging him from the saddle.
There was a satisfying snap of a bone as the Watch landed atop the warrior. He brought his good hand up and round to the Liosan’s face, thumb digging into one eye socket and fingers closing like talons on the upper lip and nose. He jammed his wounded arm with its loosened vambrace into the man’s mouth, forcing open the jaws.
Hands tore at him, but feebly, as Yedan forced his thumb deeper, in as far as it could go, then angled it upwards-but he failed to reach the brain. He got on to his knees, lifting the Liosan’s head by hooking his embedded thumb under the ridge of the brow. And then he forced it round, twisting even as he pressed down with his bloodied, armoured arm jammed across the man’s mouth. Joints popped, the jaw swung loose, and then, as the Liosan’s body thrashed in a frenzy, the vertebrae parted and the warrior went limp beneath him.
Yedan struggled to his feet.
He saw the scout with the punctured lung attempting to clamber back on to his horse. Collecting a lance, Yedan strode over. He used the haft to knock the warrior away from the horse, sending the man sprawling, and then stepped up and set the point against the Liosan’s chest. Staring down into the man’s terror-filled eyes, he pushed down on the lance, using all his weight. The armour’s enamel surface crazed, and then the point punched through.
Yedan pushed harder, twisting and grinding the serrated blade into the Liosan’s chest.
Until he saw the light leave the warrior’s eyes.
After making certain the others were dead, he bound his wounded arm, retrieved his sword and then the surviving lances and long-knives from the corpses, along with the helms. Rounding up the horses and tying them to a staggered lead, he set out at a canter back the way he had come.
He was a prince of the Shake, with memories in the blood.
Yan Tovis opened her eyes. Shadowed figures slid back and forth above her and to the sides-she could make no sense of them, nor of the muted voices surrounding her-voices that seemed to come from the still air itself. She was sheathed in sweat.
Tent walls-ah, and the shadows were nothing more than silhouettes. The voices came from outside. She struggled to sit up, the wounds on her wrists stinging as the sutures stretched. She frowned down at them, trying to recall… things. Important things.
The taste of blood, stale, the smell of fever-she was weak, lightheaded, and there was… danger.
Heart thudding, she forced her way through the entrance, on her hands and knees, the world spinning round her. Bright, blinding sunlight, scorching fires in the sky-two, three, four-four suns!
‘Highness!’
She sat back on her haunches, squinted up as a figure loomed close. ‘Who?’
‘Sergeant Trope, Highness, in Yedan’s company. Please, crawl no further, the witches-there’re wards, all round, Highness. All round you. A moment, the witches are on their way.’
‘Help me up. Where’s my brother?’
‘He rode out, Highness. Some time ago. Before the fourth sun rose-and now we’re burning alive-’
She took his proffered arm and pulled herself on to her feet. ‘Not suns, Sergeant. Attacks.’
He was a scarred man, face bludgeoned by decades of hard living. ‘Highness?’
‘We are under attack-we need to leave here. We need to leave now!’
‘O Queen!’ Pully was dancing her way closer, evading the scored lines of the wards encircling the tent. ‘He’s coming back! Witchslayer! We must ready ourselves-drip drip drip some blood, Highness. We brought ya back, me an Skwish an we did. Leave off her, you oaf, let ’er stand!’
But Yan Tovis held on to the sergeant’s wrist-solid as a rooted tree, and she needed that. She glared at Pully. ‘Drank deep, I see.’
The witch flinched. ‘Careless, an us all, Queen. But see, the Watch comes-with spare horses, white horses!’
Yan Tovis said to Trope, ‘Guide me out of these wards, Sergeant.’ And get this pretty witch out of my face.
She could hear the horses drawing closer, and, from the road, the suffering of thousands of people swept over her in an inundating tide-she almost gagged beneath that deluge.
‘Clear, Highness-’
She straightened. A fifth sun was flaring to life on the horizon. The iron fastenings of Trope’s armour were searing hot and she winced at their touch, but still would not let go of his arm. She felt her skin tightening-We’re being roasted alive.
Her brother, one arm bound in blood-soaked rags, reined in at the side of the road. Yan Tovis stared at the trailing horses. Liosan horses, yes. That clutch of lances, the sheathed long-knives and cluster of helms. Liosan.
Skwish and Pully were suddenly there, on the very edge of the road. Pully cackled a laugh.
Yan Tovis studied her brother’s face. ‘How soon?’ she asked.
She watched his bearded jaw bunch as he chewed on his answer, before squinting and saying, ‘We have time, Queen.’
‘Good,’ she snapped. ‘Witches, attend to me. We begin-not in haste, but we begin.’
Two young women, scampering and bobbing their heads like the hags they once were. New ambitions, yes, but old, old fears.
Yan Tovis met Yedan’s eyes once more, and saw that he knew. And was prepared. Witchslayer, mayhap you’re not done with that, before this is all over.
In the first five years of King Tehol the Only’s reign, there were no assassination attempts, no insurrections, no conspiracies of such magnitude as to endanger the crown; no conflicts with neighbouring realms or border tribes. The kingdom was wealthy, justice prevailed, the common people found prosperity and unprecedented mobility.
That all of this was achieved with but a handful of modest proclamations and edicts makes the situation all the more remarkable.
Needless to say, dissatisfaction haunted Lether. Misery spread like a plague. No one was happy, the list of complaints as heard on the crowded, bustling streets grew longer with each day that passed.
Clearly, something had to be done…
LIFE OF TEHOL
JANATH
Clearly,’ said King Tehol, ‘there’s nothing to be done.’ he held up the Akrynnai gift and peered at it for a time, and then sighed.
‘No suggestions, sire?’ Bugg asked.
‘I’m at a loss. I give up. I keep trying, but I must admit: it’s hopeless. Darling wife?’
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘Some help you are. Where’s Brys?’
‘With his legions, husband. Preparing to march.’
‘The man’s priorities are a mess. I remember how our mother despaired.’
‘Of Brys?’ Janath asked, surprised.
‘Well, no. Me, mostly. Never mind. The issue here is that we’re facing a disaster. One that could scar this nation for generations to come. I need help, and see how none of you here can manage a single useful suggestion. My advisors are even more pathetic than the man they purport to advise. The situation is intolerable.’ He paused, and then frowned over at Bugg. ‘What’s the protocol? Find me that diplomat so I can chase him out of here again-no, wait, send for the emissary.’
‘Are you sure, sire?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Bugg gestured at the gift in the King’s hands. ‘Because we’re no closer to finding a suitable gift in reciprocation.’
Tehol leaned forward. ‘And why, dear Chancellor, is that?’
‘Because none of us has a clue what that thing is, sire.’
Tehol grimaced. ‘How can this thing defeat the greatest minds of the kingdom?’
‘I didn’t know we’d tried them yet,’ murmured Janath.
‘It’s bone, antler, inlaid pearl and it has two handles.’ Tehol waited, but no one had anything to add to that succinct description. ‘At least, I think they’re handles…’
Janath’s breath caught, and then she said, ‘Oh.’
King Tehol scratched his jaw. ‘Best the emissary wait a little longer, I think.’
‘Sound decision, sire.’
‘Such opinions, Bugg, are invaluable. Now, dear wife, shall we retire to our private chambers to further our exploration of this, uhm, offering?’
‘You must be mad. Find Shurq Elalle. Or Rucket.’
‘Finally, proper advice!’
‘And I’ll buy myself a new dagger.’
‘That hints of high emotions, my beloved. Jealous rage does not become you.’
‘It doesn’t become anyone, husband. You didn’t really think I wanted you to follow my suggestion?’
‘Well, it’s true that it’s easy to make suggestions when you know they won’t be heeded.’
‘Yes it is. Now, you will find a small room with a stout door and multiple locks, and once the emissary has departed, in goes that gift, never again to see the light of day.’ And she settled back on the throne, arms crossed.
Tehol eyed the gift forlornly, and then sighed once more. ‘Send for the emissary, Bugg.’
‘At once, sire.’ He gestured to a servant waiting at the far end of the throne room.
‘While we’re waiting, is there any kingly business we need to mull over?’
‘Your repatriation proclamation, sire-that’s going to cause trouble.’
Tehol thumped the arm of his throne with a fist. ‘And trouble is precisely what I want! Indignation! Outrage! Protests! Let the people rail and shake their knobby fists! Let us, yes, stir this steaming stew, wave the ladle about, spattering all the walls and worse.’
Janath turned to eye him speculatively.
Bugg grunted. ‘Should work. I mean, you’re taking land away from some very wealthy families. You could well foment a general insurrection. Assuming that would be useful.’
‘Useful?’ demanded Janath. ‘In what context could insurrection be useful? Tehol, I warned you about that edict-’
‘Proclamation-’
‘-and the rage you’ll incite. But did you listen?’
‘I most certainly did, my Queen. But let me ask you, are my reasons any less just?’
‘No, it was stolen land to begin with, but that’s beside the point. The losers won’t see it that way.’
‘And that, my love, is precisely my point. Justice bites. With snippy sharp teeth. If it doesn’t, then the common folk will perceive it as unbalanced, forever favouring the wealthy and influential. When robbed, the rich cry out for protection and prosecution. When stealing, they expect the judiciary to look the other way. Well, consider this a royal punch in the face. Let them smart.’
‘You truly expect to purge cynicism from the common people, Tehol?’
‘Well, wife, in this instance it’s more the sweet taste of vengeance, but a deeper lesson is being delivered, I assure you. Ah, enough prattling about inconsequential things-the noble Akrynnai emissary arrives! Approach, my friend!’
The huge man with the wolf-skin cloak strode forward, showing his fiercest scowl.
Smiling, King Tehol said, ‘We delight in this wondrous gift and please do convey our pleasure to Sceptre Irkullas, and assure him we will endeavour to make use of it as soon as an opportunity… arises.’
The warrior’s scowl deepened. ‘Make use? What kind of use? It’s a damned piece of art, sire. Stick it on a damned wall and forget about it-that’s what I would do were I you. A closet wall, in fact.’
‘Ah, I see. Forgive me.’ Tehol frowned down at the object. ‘Art, yes. Of course.’
‘It wasn’t even the Sceptre’s idea,’ the emissary grumbled. ‘Some ancient agreement, wasn’t it? Between our peoples? An exchange of meaningless objects. Irkullas has a whole wagon stuffed with similar rubbish from you Letherii. Trundles around after us like an arthritic dog.’
‘The wagon’s pulled by an arthritic dog?’
The man grunted. ‘I wish. Now, I have something to discuss. Can we get on with it?’
Tehol smiled. ‘By all means. This has proved most fascinating.’
‘What has? I haven’t started yet.’
‘Just so. Proceed, then, sir.’
‘We think our traders have been murdered by the Barghast. In fact, we think the painted savages have declared war on us. And so we call upon our loyal neighbours, the Letherii, for assistance in this unwanted war.’ And he crossed his arms, glowering.
‘Is there precedent for our assistance in such conflicts?’ Tehol asked, settling his chin in one hand.
‘There is. We ask, you say “no”, and we go home. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘you say, “Of course, but first let us have half a thousand brokes of pasture land and twenty ranks of tanned hides, oh, and renounce sovereignty of the Kryn Freetrade Lands and maybe a royal hostage or two.” To which we make a rude gesture and march home.’
‘Are there no other alternatives?’ Tehol asked. ‘Chancellor, what has so irritated the-what are they called again-the Barnasties?’
‘Barghast,’ corrected Bugg. ‘White Face Clans-they claim most of the plains as their ancestral homeland. I suspect this is the reason for their setting out to conquer the Akrynnai.’
Tehol turned to Janath and raised an eyebrow. ‘Repatriation issues, see how they plague peoples? Bugg, are these Barghast in truth from those lands?’
The Chancellor shrugged.
‘What kind of answer is that?’ Tehol demanded.
‘The only honest kind, sire. The problem is this: migratory tribes move around, that’s what makes them migratory. They flow in waves, this way and that. The Barghast may well have dwelt on the plains and much of the Wastelands once, long, long ago. But what of it? Tarthenal once lived there, too, and Imass, and Jheck-a well-trammelled land, by any count. Who’s to say which claim is more legitimate than the next?’
The emissary barked a laugh. ‘But who lives there now? We do. The only answer that matters. We will destroy these Barghast. Irkullas calls to the Kryn and their mercenary Warleader Zavast. He calls to Saphinand and to the D’rhasilhani. And he sends me to you Letherii, to take the measure of your new King.’
‘If you will crush the Barghast with the assistance of your allies,’ said Tehol, ‘why come here at all? What measure do you seek from me?’
‘Will you pounce when our backs are turned? Our spies tell us your commander is in the field with an army-’
‘We can tell you that,’ Tehol said. ‘There’s no need for spies-’
‘We prefer spies.’
‘Right. Well. Yes, Brys Beddict leads a Letherii army-’
‘Into the Wastelands-through our territory, in fact.’
‘Actually,’ said Bugg, ‘we will be mostly skirting your territories, sir.’
‘And what of these foreigners you march with?’ the emissary asked, adding an impressive snarl after the question.
Tehol held up a hand. ‘A moment, before this paranoia gets out of hand. Deliver the following message to Sceptre Irkullas, from King Tehol of Lether. He is free to prosecute his war against the Barghast-in defence of his territory and such-without fear of Letherii aggression. Nor, I add, that of the Malazans, the foreigners, I mean.’
‘You cannot speak for the foreigners.’
‘No, but Brys Beddict and his army will be escorting them, and so guarantee that nothing treacherous will take place-’
‘Hah! Bolkando is already warring with the foreigners’ allies!’
Bugg snorted. ‘Thus revealing to you that the much acclaimed Bolkando Alliance has a straw spine,’ he pointed out. ‘Leave the Bolkando to sort out their own mess. As for the Malazans, assure Irkullas, they are not interested in you or your lands.’
The emissary’s eyes had narrowed, his expression one of deep, probably pathological suspicion. ‘I shall convey your words. Now, what gift must I take back to Irkullas?’
Tehol rubbed his chin. ‘How does a wagonload of silks, linens, quality iron bars and a hundred or so silver ingots sound, sir?’
The man blinked.
‘Outmoded traditions are best left behind, I’m sure Sceptre Irkullas will agree. Go, then, with our blessing.’
The man bowed and then walked off, weaving as if drunk.
Tehol turned to Janath and smiled.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Now the poor bastard has to reciprocate in kind-which will likely impoverish him. Those old traditions survived for a reason, husband.’
‘He won’t be impoverished with the haul I just sent his way.’
‘But he’ll need to divide it up among his warleaders, to buy their loyalty.’
‘He would have done that anyway,’ said Tehol. ‘And where did this insane notion of buying loyalty come from? It’s a contradiction in terms.’
‘The currency is obligation,’ said Bugg. ‘Gifts force honour upon the receiver. Sire, I must speak with you now as the Ceda. The journey Brys intends is more fraught than we had initially thought. I fear for his fate and that of his legions.’
‘This relates, I assume,’ said Janath, ‘to the unknown motives of the Malazans. But Brys is not compelled to accompany them beyond the Wastelands, is he? Indeed, is it not his intention to return once that expanse is successfully crossed?’
Bugg nodded. ‘Alas, I now believe that the Wastelands are where the greatest peril waits.’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘Blood has been spilled on those ancient soils. There will be more to come.’
Tehol rose from the throne, the Akrynnai gift in his hands. He held it out to one side and a servant hurried forward to take it. ‘I do not believe my brother is as unaware of such dangers as you think, Bugg. His sojourn in the realm of the dead-or wherever it was-has changed him. Not surprising, I suppose. In any case, I don’t think he returned to the realm of the living just to keep me company.’
‘I suspect you are right,’ said Bugg. ‘But I can tell you nothing of the path he has taken. In a sense, he stands outside of… well, everything. As a force, one might view him as unaligned, and therefore unpredictable.’
‘Which is why the Errant sought to kill him,’ said Janath.
‘Yes,’ replied Bugg. ‘One thing I can say: while in close company with the Malazans, Brys is perhaps safer from the Errant than he would be anywhere else.’
‘And on the return journey?’ Tehol asked.
‘I expect the Errant to be rather preoccupied by then, sire.’
‘Why is that?’
Bugg was long in replying, and on his blunt face could be seen a reluctant weighing of risks, ending in a grimace and then a sigh. ‘He compels me. In my most ancient capacity, he compels me. Sire, by the time Brys begins his return to the kingdom, the Errant will be busy… contending with me.’
The iron beneath Bugg’s words silenced the two others in the throne room, for a time.
Tehol then spoke, looking at neither his wife nor his closest friend. ‘I will take a walk in the garden.’
They watched him leave.
Janath said, ‘Brys is his brother, after all. And to have lost him once…’
Bugg nodded.
‘Is there anything more you can do?’ she asked him. ‘To protect him?’
‘Who, Brys or Tehol?’
‘In this matter, I think, they are one and the same.’
‘Some possibilities exist,’ Bugg allowed. ‘Unfortunately, in such circumstances as these, often the gesture proves deadlier than the original threat.’ He held up a hand to forestall her. ‘Of course I will do what I can.’
She looked away. ‘I know you will. So, friend, you are compelled-when will you leave us?’
‘Soon. Some things cannot be resisted for long-I am making him sweat.’ He then grunted and added, ‘and that’s making me sweat.’
‘Is this a “binding of blood”?’ she asked.
He started, eyed her curiously. ‘I keep forgetting you are a scholar, my Queen. That ancient phrase holds many layers of meaning, and almost as many secrets. Every family begins with a birth, but there can never be just one, can there?’
‘Solitude is simple. Society isn’t.’
‘Just so, Janath.’ He studied her for a moment. She sat on the throne, leaning to one side, head resting on one hand. ‘Did you know you are with child?’
‘Of course.’
‘Does Tehol?’
‘Probably not. It’s early yet-Bugg, I suffered greatly in the hands of the Patriotists, didn’t I? I see scars on my body but have no memory of how they came to be there. I feel pains inside and so I believe there are scars within, as well. I suspect your hand in my strange ignorance-you have scoured away the worst of what I experienced. I don’t know if I should thank you or curse you.’
‘An even measure of both, I should think.’
She regarded him levelly. ‘Yes, you understand the necessity of balance, don’t you? Well, I think I will give it a few more weeks before I terrify my husband.’
‘The child is healthy, Janath, and I sense no risks-those pains are phantom ones-I was thorough in my healing.’
‘That’s a relief.’ She rose. ‘Tell me, was it simply a question of my twisted imagination, or did that Akrynnai artist have something disreputable in mind?’
‘My Queen, neither mortal nor immortal can fathom the mind of an artist. But as a general rule, between two possible answers, choose the more sordid one.’
‘Of course. How silly of me.’
‘Draconus is lost within Dragnipur. Nightchill’s soul is scattered to the winds. Grizzin Farl vanished millennia ago. And Edgewalker might well deny any compulsion out of sheer obstinacy or, possibly, a righteous claim to disassociation.’ Knuckles managed a twisted smile, and then shrugged. ‘If there is one presence I would find unwelcome above all others, Errastas, it is Olar Ethil.’
‘She is dead-’
‘And supremely indifferent to that condition-she embraced the Ritual of Tellann without hesitation, the opportunistic bitch-’
‘And so bound herself to the fate of the T’lan Imass,’ said the Errant, as he eyed Kilmandaros. The huge creature had dragged a massive trunk to the centre of the chamber, snapping the lock with one hand and then flinging back the lid; and now she was pulling out various pieces of green-stained armour, muttering under her breath. On the walls on all sides, seawater was streaming in through widening cracks, swirling ankle-deep and rising to engulf the fire in the hearth. The air was growing bitter cold.
‘Not as bound as you might hope for,’ said Sechul Lath. ‘We have discussed K’rul, but there is one other, Errastas. An entity most skilled at remaining a mystery to us all-’
‘Ardata. But she is not the only one. I always sensed, Setch, that there were more of us than any of us imagined. Even with my power, my command of the Tiles, I was convinced there were ghosts, hovering at the edge of my vision, my awareness. Ghosts, as ancient and as formidable as any of us.’
‘Defying your rule,’ said Sechul slyly, swirling the amber wine in his crystal goblet.
‘Afraid to commit themselves,’ the Errant said, sneering. ‘Hiding from each other too, no doubt. Singly, not one poses a threat. In any case, it is different now.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. The rewards we can reap are vast-whatever has gone before is as nothing. Think on it. All that was stolen from us returned once more into our hands. The ghosts, the ones in hiding-they would be fools to hesitate. No, the wise course is to step out from the shadows.’
Knuckles took a mouthful of wine. The water was soaking the seat of the chair beneath him. ‘The House is eager to wash us out.’
Kilmandaros had shrugged her way into a sopping hauberk of chain. She reached down to the submerged floor and lifted from the foaming swirl a huge gauntlet through which water gushed in a deluge. She dragged the gauntlet over one gnarled fist, and then reached down to find the other one.
‘She’s pleased,’ said Errastas.
‘No she isn’t,’ countered Knuckles. ‘You have awakened her anger, and now she must find an enemy worthy of it. Sometimes-even for you-control is a delusion, a conceit. What you unleash here-’
‘Is long overdue. Cease your efforts to undermine me, Setch-you only reveal your own weaknesses.’
‘Weaknesses I have never run from, Errastas. Can you say the same?’
The Errant bared his teeth. ‘You are cast. It cannot be undone. We must take our fate into our own hands-look to Kilmandaros-she will show us how it must be. Discard your fears-they sting like poison.’
‘I am ready.’
At her words both men turned. She was clad for war and stood like a bestial statue, a hoary apparition enwreathed in seaweed. Algae mottled her hauberk. Verdigris mapped her helm’s skullcap. The broad, low-slung, grilled cheek-guards looked like iron chelae, the bridge gleaming like a scorpion’s pincer. Her gauntleted hands were closed into fists, like giant mauls at the ends of her apish, multi-jointed arms.
‘So you are,’ said Errastas, smiling.
‘I have never trusted you,’ Kilmandaros said in a growl.
He rose, still smiling. ‘Why should I be unique? Now, who among us will open the portal? Knuckles, show us your power.’
The gaunt man flinched.
The water had reached hip-level-not Kilmandaros’s hips, of course. The Errant gestured in Sechul Lath’s direction. ‘Let us see you as you should be. This is my first gift, Setch.’ Power blossomed.
The ancient figure blurred, straightened, revealing at last a tall, youthful Forkrul Assail-who reeled, face darkening. He flung away his goblet. ‘How dare you! Leave me as I was, damn you!’
‘My gift,’ snapped Errastas. ‘To be accepted in the spirit in which it is given.’
Sechul held his elongated hands up over his face. ‘How could you think,’ he rasped, ‘I ever regretted what I left behind?’ He pulled his hands away, glaring. ‘Give me back all that I have earned!’
‘You are a fool-’
‘We will leave now,’ cut in Kilmandaros, loud enough to thunder in the chamber.
‘Errastas!’
‘No! It is done!’
A second gesture, and a portal opened, swallowing an entire wall of the House. Kilmandaros lumbered through, vanishing from sight.
The Errant faced Knuckles.
His old friend’s eyes were filled with such wretched distress that Errastas snarled, ‘Oh, have it your way, then-’ and cruelly tore the blessing from the man, watched with satisfaction as the man bowed, gasping in sudden pain.
‘There, wear your pathos, Setch, since it fits so damned well. What is this? You do not welcome its return?’
‘It pleases you to deliver pain, does it? I see that you are unchanged… in the essential details of your nature.’ Groaning, Sechul conjured a staff and leaned heavily upon it. ‘Lead on then, Errastas.’
‘Why must you sour this moment of triumph?’
‘Perhaps I but remind you of what awaits us all.’
The Errant struggled not to strike Knuckles, not to knock that staff away with a kick and watch the old creature totter, possibly even fall. A shortlived pleasure. Unworthy to be sure. He faced the portal. ‘Stay close-this gate will slam shut behind us, I suspect.’
‘It’s had its fill, aye.’
Moments later, water roared in to reclaim the chamber, darkness devoured every room, every hall. Currents rushed, and then settled, until all was motionless once more.
The House was at peace.
For a time.
Captain Ruthan Gudd was in the habit of grooming his beard with his fingers, an affectation that Shurq Elalle found irritating. Thoughtful repose was all very well, as far as poses went, but the man was so terse she had begun to suspect his genius was of the ineffable kind; in other words, it might be the man was thick but just clever enough to assume the guise of wisdom and depth. The silly thing was how damned successful and alluring the whole thing was-that hint of mystery, the dark veil of his eyes, his potent silences.
‘Errant’s sake, get out of here.’
He started, and then reached for his sword belt. ‘I will miss you.’
‘Everyone says that to me sooner or later.’
‘A curious observation.’
‘Is it? The simple truth is, I wear men out. In any case, I’m about to sail, so all in all it’s just as well.’
He grunted. ‘I’d rather be standing on a deck, letting the sails do all the work, than marching.’
‘Then why did you become a soldier?’
He raked through his beard, frowned, and then said, ‘Habit.’ As he made his way to the door he paused, and squinted down at an urn sitting against one wall. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘That thing? I’m a pirate, Ruthan. I come by things.’
‘Not purchased at a market stall in the city, then.’
‘Of course not. Why?’
‘The crows caught my eye. Seven Cities, that pot.’
‘It’s an urn, not a pot.’
‘Fall of Coltaine. You preyed on a Malazan ship-’ he turned and eyed her. ‘Has to have been recently. Did you pounce on one of our ships? There were storms, the fleet was scattered more than once. A few were lost, in fact.’
She returned his stare flatly. ‘And what if I had? It’s not like I knew anything about you, is it?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose not. Though the idea that you put some fellow Malazans to the sword doesn’t sit well.’
‘I didn’t,’ she replied. ‘I pounced on a Tiste Edur ship.’
After a moment he nodded. ‘That makes sense. We first encountered them outside Ehrlitan.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’
His eyes hardened. ‘You are a cold woman, Shurq Elalle.’
‘I’ve heard that before, too.’
He left without another word. It was always better this way, find something annoying to sour the moment, a brief exchange of lashing words, and then it was done with. Yearning goodbyes, dripping with soppy sentimentalities, were never quite as satisfying as one would like.
She quickly collected the last of her gear-most of her stuff was already stowed aboard Undying Gratitude. Skorgen Kaban the Pretty had taken charge of things, more or less, down at the harbour. Clearing up berth fees, sobering up the crew and whatnot. Her two Bolkando guests were safely stowed in the main cabin; and if Ublala Pung still hadn’t shown up by the time she arrived, that was just too bad-the oaf had the memory of a moth.
He probably got confused and tried to walk to the islands.
She buckled her rapier to her hip, slung a modest duffel bag over one shoulder, and left, not bothering to lock the door-the room was rented and besides, the first thief inside was welcome to everything, especially that stupid urn.
A pleasant and promising offshore breeze accompanied her down to the docks. She was satisfied to see plenty of activity aboard her ship as she strode to the gangplank. Stevedores were loading the last of the supplies, suffering under cruel commentary from the gaggle of whores who’d come down to send off the crew, said whores shooting her withering looks as she swept past them. Hardly deserved, she felt, since she hadn’t been competing with them for months and besides, wasn’t she now leaving?
She stepped down on to the main deck. ‘Pretty, where did you get that nose?’
Her First Mate clumped over. ‘Snapper beak,’ he said, ‘stuffed with cotton to hold back on the drip, Captain. I bought it at the Tides Market.’
She squinted at him. The strings holding the beak in place looked painfully tight. ‘Best loosen it up some,’ she advised, dropping the bag down to one side and then setting her fists on her hips as she surveyed the others on deck. ‘No Pung?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, I want to take advantage of this wind.’
‘Good, Captain, the giant’s an ill omen besides-’
‘None of that,’ she snapped. ‘He made a fine pirate in his days with us, and there was nothing ill-omened about him.’ Kaban was jealous, of course. But the nose looked ridiculous. ‘Get these dock rats off my ship and crew the lines.’
‘Aye, Captain.’
She watched him limp off, nodded severely when he roared into the ear of a lounging sailor. Walking to the landward rail up near the bow, she scanned the crowds on the waterfront. No sign of Ublala Pung. ‘Idiot.’
Captain Ruthan Gudd collected his horse at the stables and set out northward along the main avenue running partway alongside the central canal. He saw no other Malazans among the crowds-he could well be the last left in the city. This suited him fine, and better still if Tavore and her Bonehunters were to pull stakes before he arrived, leaving him behind.
He’d never wanted to be made a captain since it meant too many people paid attention to him. Given a choice, Ruthan would be pleased to spend his entire life not being noticed by anyone. Except for the occasional woman, of course. He had considered, rather often lately, deserting the army. If he had been a regular foot-soldier, he might well have done just that. But a missing officer meant mages joining in the search, and the last thing he wanted was to be sniffed down by a magicker. Of course Tavore wouldn’t hold back on the army’s march just to await his appearance-but there might well be a mage or two riding for him right now.
Either way, Fist Blistig was probably rehearsing the tongue-lashing he’d be delivering to Ruthan as soon as the captain showed.
Under normal circumstances, it was easy to hide in an army, even as an officer. Volunteer for nothing, offer no suggestions, stay in the back at briefings, or better still, miss them altogether. Most command structures made allowances for useless officers-no different from the allowances made for useless soldiers in the field. ‘Take a thousand soldiers. Four hundred will stand in a fight but do nothing. Two hundred will run given the chance. Another hundred will get confused. That leaves three hundred you can count on. Your task in commanding that thousand is all down to knowing where to put that three hundred.’ Not Malazan doctrine, that. Some Theftian general, he suspected. Not Korelri, that was certain. Korelri would just keep the three hundred and execute the rest.
Greymane? No, don’t be stupid, Ruthan. Be lucky to get five words a year out of that man. Then again, who needs words when you can fight like that? Hood keep you warm, Greymane.
In any case, Ruthan counted himself among the useless seven hundred, capable of doing nothing, getting confused, or routed at the first clash of weapons. Thus far, however, he’d not had a chance to attempt any of those options. The scraps he’d found himself in-relatively few, all things considered-had forced him to fight like a rabid wolf to stay alive. There was nothing worse in the world than being noticed by someone trying to kill you-seeing that sudden sharp focus in a stranger’s eyes-
The captain shook himself. The north gate waited ahead.
Back into the army. Done with the soft bed and soft but oddly cool feminine flesh; with the decent (if rather tart) Letherii wines. Done with the delicious ease of doing nothing. Attention was coming his way and there was nothing to be done about it.
You told me to keep my head low, Greymane. I’ve been trying. It’s not working. But then, something in your eyes told me you knew it wouldn’t, because it wasn’t working for you either.
Ruthan Gudd clawed at his bead, reminding himself of the stranger’s face he now wore.
Let’s face it, old friend. In this world it’s only the dead who don’t get noticed.
The place of sacrifice held an air of something broken. Ruined. It was a misery being there, but Ublala Pung had no choice. Old Hunch Arbat’s rasping voice was in his head, chasing him this way and that, and the thing about a skull-even one as big as his-was how it was never big enough to run all the way away, even when it was a dead old man doing the chasing.
‘I did what you said,’ he said. ‘So leave me alone. I got to get to the ship. So Shurq and me can sex. You’re just jealous.’
He was the only living thing in the cemetery. It wasn’t being used much any more, ever since parts of it started sinking. Sepulchres tilted and sagged and then broke open. Big stone urns fell over. Trees got struck by lightning and marsh gases wandered round looking like floating heads. And all the bones were pushing up from the ground like stones in a farmer’s field. He’d picked one up, a leg bone, to give his hands something to play with while he waited for Arbat’s ghost.
Scuffling sounds behind him-Ublala turned. ‘Oh, you. What do you want?’
‘I was coming to scare you,’ said the rotted, half-naked corpse, and it raised bony hands sporting long, jagged fingernails. ‘Aaaagh!’
‘You’re stupid. Go away.’
Harlest Eberict sagged. ‘Nothing’s working any more. Look at me. I’m falling apart.’
‘Go to Selush. She’ll sew you back up.’
‘I can’t. This stupid ghost won’t let me.’
‘What ghost?’
Harlest tapped his head, breaking a nail in the process. ‘Oh, see that? It’s all going wrong!’
‘What ghost?’
‘The one that wants to talk to you, and give you stuff. The one you killed. Murderer. I wanted to be a murderer, too, you know. Tear people to pieces and then eat the pieces. But there’s no point in having ambitions-it all comes to naught. I was reaching too high, asking for too much. I lost my head.’
‘No you didn’t. It’s still there.’
‘Listen, the sooner we get this done the sooner that ghost will leave me so I can get back to doing nothing. Follow me.’
Harlest led Ublala through the grounds until they came to a sunken pit, three paces across and twice as deep. Bones jutted from the sides all the way down. The corpse pointed. ‘An underground stream shifted course, moved under this cemetery. That’s why it’s slumping everywhere. What are you doing with that bone?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Get rid of it-you’re making me nervous.’
‘I want to talk to the ghost. To Old Hunch.’
‘You can’t. Except in your head and the ghost isn’t powerful enough to do that while it’s using me. You’re stuck with me. Now, right at the bottom there’s Tarthenal bones, some of the oldest burials in the area. You want to clear all that away, until you get to a big stone slab. You then need to pull that up or push it to one side. What you need is under that.’
‘I don’t need anything.’
‘Yes you do. You’re not going to get back to your kin for a while. Sorry, I know you’ve got plans, but there’s nothing to be done for it. Karsa Orlong will just have to wait.’
Ublala scowled into the pit. ‘I’m going to miss my ship-Shurq’s going to be so mad. And I’m supposed to collect all the Tarthenal-that’s what Karsa wants me to do. Old Hunch, you’re ruining everything!’ He clutched his head, hitting himself with the bone in the process. ‘Ow, see what you made me do?’
‘That’s only because you keep confusing things, Ublala Pung. Now get digging.’
‘I should never have killed you. The ghost, I mean.’
‘You had no choice.’
‘I hate the way I never get no choice.’
‘Just climb into the hole, Ublala Pung.’
Wiping his eyes, the Tarthenal clambered down into the pit and began tossing out clumps of earth and bones.
Some time later Harlest heard the grinding crunch of shifting stone and drew closer to the edge and looked down. ‘Good, you found it. That’s it, get your hands under that edge and tilt it up. Go on, put your back into it.’
For all his empty encouragement, Harlest was surprised to see that the giant oaf actually managed to lift that enormous slab of solid stone and push it against one of the pit’s walls.
The body interred within the sarcophagus had once been as massive as Ublala’s own, but it had mostly rotted away to dust, leaving nothing but the armour and weapons.
‘The ghost says there’s a name for that armour,’ said Harlest, ‘even as the mace is named. First Heroes were wont to such affectations. This particular one, a Thelomen, hailed from a region bordering the First Empire-in a land very distant-the same land the first Letherii came from, in fact. A belligerent bastard-his name is forgotten and best left that way. Take that armour, and the mace.’
‘It smells,’ complained Ublala Pung.
‘Dragon scales sometimes do, especially those from the neck and flanges, where there are glands-and that’s where those ones came from. This particular dragon was firstborn to Alkend. The armour’s name is Dra Alkeleint-basically Thelomen for “I killed the dragon Dralk.” He used that mace to do it, and its name is Rilk, which is Thelomen for “Crush”. Or “Smash” or something similar.’
‘I don’t want any of this stuff,’ said Ublala. ‘I don’t even know how to use a mace.’
Harlest examined his broken nail. ‘Fear not-Rilk knows how to use you. Now, drag it all up here and I can help you get that armour on-provided you kneel, that is.’
Ublala brought up the mace first. Two-handed, the haft a thick, slightly bent shaft of bone, horn or antler, polished amber by antiquity. A gnarled socket of bronze capped its base. The head was vaguely shaped to form four battered bulbs-the ore was marled mercurial and deep blue.
‘Skyfall,’ said Harlest, ‘that metal. Harder than iron. You held it easily, Ublala, while I doubt I could even lift the damned thing. Rilk is pleased.’
Ublala scowled up at him, and then ducked down once again.
The armour consisted of shoulder plates, with the chest and back pieces in separate halves. A thick belt joined the upper parts to a waisted skirt. Smaller dragon scales formed the thigh-guards, with knee bosses made of dew-claws forming deadly spikes. Beneath the knees, a single moulded scale protected each shin. Vambraces of matching construction protected the wrists, with suppler hide covering the upper arms. Gauntlets of bone strips sheathed the hands.
Time’s assault had failed-the scales were solid, the gut ties and leather straps supple as if new. The armour probably weighed as much as a grown human.
Last came the helm. Hundreds of bone fragments-probably from the dragon’s skull and jaws-had been drilled and fastened together to form an overlapping skull cap, brow-and cheek-guards, and articulated lobster tail covering the back of the neck. The effect was both ghastly and terrifying.
‘Climb out and let’s get you properly attired.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘You want to stay in that hole?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s not allowed. The ghost insists.’
‘I don’t like Old Hunch any more. I’m glad I killed him.’
‘So is he.’
‘I change my mind then. I’m not glad. I wish I’d left him alive for ever.’
‘Then he would be the one standing here talking to you instead of me. There’s no winning, Ublala Pung. The ghost wants you in this stuff, carrying the mace. You can leave off the helm for now, at least until you’re out of the city.’
‘Where am I going?’
‘The Wastelands.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that place.’
‘You have a very important task, Ublala Pung. In fact, you’ll like it, I suspect. No, you will. Come up here and I’ll tell you all about it while we’re getting that armour on you.’
‘Tell me now.’
‘No. It’s a secret unless you climb out.’
‘You’re going to tell me it if I come up there?’
‘And get into the armour, yes.’
‘I like people telling me secrets,’ said Ublala Pung.
‘I know,’ said Harlest.
‘Okay.’
‘Wonderful.’ Harlest looked away. Maybe he’d go to Selush after all. Not until night arrived, though. The last time he’d attempted the city streets in daytime a mob of scrawny urchins threw stones at him. What was the world coming to? Why, if he was in better shape, he could run after them and rip limbs from bodies and that’d be the end of the teasing and laughing, wouldn’t it?
Children needed lessons, yes they did. Why, when he was a child…
Brys Beddict dismissed his officers and then his aides, waiting until everyone had left the tent before sitting down on the camp stool. He leaned forward and stared at his hands. They felt cold, as they had done ever since his return, as if the memory of icy water and fierce pressure still haunted them. Gazing upon the eager faces of his officers was proving increasingly difficult-something was growing within him, a kind of abject sorrow that seemed to broaden the distance between himself and everyone else.
He had looked at these animated faces but had seen in each the shadow of death, a ghostly face just beneath the outward one. Had he simply gained some new, wretched, insight into mortality? Sanity was best served when one dealt with the here and now, with reality’s physical presence-its hard insistence. That brush of otherness scratched at his self-control.
If consciousness was but a spark, doomed to go out, fade into oblivion, then what value all this struggle? He held within him the names of countless long-dead gods. He alone kept them alive, or at least as near alive as was possible for such forgotten entities. To what end?
There was, he decided, much to envy in his brother. No one delighted more in the blessed absurdity of human endeavours. What better answer to despair?
Of the legions accompanying him, he had restructured all but one, the Harridict, and he had only spared that brigade at the request of the Malazan soldiers who’d worked with them. Doing away with the old battalion and brigade organization, he’d created five distinct legions, four of them consisting of two thousand soldiers and support elements. The fifth legion encompassed the bulk of the supply train as well as the mobile hospital, livestock, drovers and sundry personnel, including five hundred horse troops that employed the new fixed stirrups and were swiftly gaining competence under the tutelage of the Malazans.
Each of the combat legions, including the Harridict, now housed its own kitchen, smithy, armourers, triage, mounted scouts and messengers, as well as heavy assault weapons. More than ever, there was greater reliance upon the legion commanders and their staff-Brys wanted competence and self-reliance and he had selected his officers based on these qualities. The disadvantage to such personalities was evinced in every staff briefing, as egos clashed. Once on the march, Brys suspected, the inherent rivalries would shift from internal belligerence to competition with the foreign army marching on their flank, and that was just as well. The Letherii had something to prove, or, if not prove, then reinvent-the Malazans had, quite simply, trashed them in the invasion.
For too long the Letherii military had faced less sophisticated enemies-even the Tiste Edur qualified, given their unstructured, barbaric approach to combat. The few battles with the Bolkando legions, a decade ago, had proved bloody and indecisive-but those potential lessons had been ignored.
Few military forces were by nature introspective. Conservatism was bound to tradition, like knots in a rope. Brys sought something new in his army. Malleable, quick to adapt, fearless in challenging old ways of doing things. At the same time, he understood the value of tradition, and the legion structure was in fact a return to the history of the First Empire.
He clenched his hands, watched the blood leave his knuckles.
This would be no simple, uneventful march.
He looked upon his soldiers and saw death in their faces. Prophecy or legacy? He wished he knew.
Reliko saw the Falari heavies, Lookback, Shoaly and Drawfirst-all of them closing up their kit bags near the six-squad wagon-and walked over. ‘Listen,’ he said. Three dark faces lifted to squint at him, and they didn’t have to lift much, even though they were kneeling. ‘It’s this. That heavy, Shortnose-you know, the guy missing most of his nose? Was married to Hanno who died.’
The three cousins exchanged glances. Drawfirst shrugged, wiped sweat from her forehead and said, ‘Him, yeah. Following Flashwit around these days-’
‘That’s the biggest woman I ever seen,’ said Shoaly, licking his lips.
Lookback nodded. ‘It’s her green eyes-’
‘No it ain’t, Lookie,’ retorted Shoaly. ‘It’s her big everything else.’
Drawfirst snorted. ‘You want big ’uns, look at me, Shoaly. On second thoughts, don’t. I know you too good, don’t I?’
Reliko scowled. ‘I was talking about Shortnose, remember? Anyway, I seem to recall he only had one ear that time he got into that scrap and got his other ear bitten off.’
‘Yeah,’ said Drawfirst. ‘What about it?’
‘You look at him lately? He’s still got one ear. So what happened? Did it grow back?’
The three soldiers said nothing, their expressions blank. After a moment they returned to readying their kits.
Muttering under his breath, Reliko stomped off. This army had secrets, that it did. Shortnose and his damned ear. Nefarias Bredd and his one giant foot. That squad mage and his pet rats. Vastly Blank who had no brain at all but could fight like a demon. Lieutenant Pores and his evil, now dead, twin. Bald Kindly and his comb collection-in fact, Reliko decided as he returned to his squad, just about everyone here, barring maybe himself and his sergeant, was completely mad.
It’s what no one outside an army understood. They just saw the uniforms and weapons, the helms and visors, the marching in time. And if they ever did realize the truth, why, they’d be even more scared. They’d run screaming.
‘Ee cham penuttle, Erlko.’
‘Shut up, Nep. Where’s Badan?’
‘Ee’n ere, y’poffle floob!’
‘I can see that-so where did he go is what I want to know?’
The mage’s wrinkled prune of a face puckered into something indescribable. ‘Anay, ijit.’
‘Ruffle! You seen the sergeant?’
The squad corporal sat leaning against a wagon wheel, one of those fat rustleaf rollers jammed between her fat lips, smoke puffing out from everywhere, maybe even her ears.
‘Doo sheen see inny ting tru at smick!’ barked Nep Furrow.
Despite himself Reliko grunted a laugh. ‘Y’got that one right, Nep-Ruffle, you got something wrong with air?’
She lifted one hand languidly and plucked the thing from her mouth. ‘You fool. This is keeping those nasty mosquitoes away.’
‘Hey, now that’s clever-where can I get me some?’
‘I brought about a thousand of ’em. But I warn you, Reliko, they’ll make you green the first few days. But pretty soon you start sweating it outa your pores and not a bug will want you.’
‘Huh. Anyway, where’s Badan?’
‘Having a chat with some other sergeants, Fiddler and them.’ Ruffle puffed some more, and then added, ‘I think Badan’s decided we should stick with them-we all worked good enough before.’
‘I suppose.’ But Reliko didn’t like the idea. Those squads were lodestones to trouble. ‘What’s Sinter say about that?’
‘Seems all right with it, I guess.’
‘Hey, where’s our useless recruits?’
‘Some Letherii came by and scooped them up.’
‘Who said he could do that?’
Ruffle shrugged. ‘Didn’t ask.’
Reliko rubbed the back of his neck-not much to rub, he didn’t have much of a neck, but he liked rubbing it, especially along the ridge of calluses where his helm’s flare usually rested. He saw Skim’s booted feet sticking out from under the wagon, wondered if she was dead. ‘I’m going to get Vastly. Squad should be together for when Badan gets back.’
‘Aye, good idea,’ said Ruffle.
‘You’re the laziest damned corporal I ever seen.’
‘Privilege of rank,’ she said around her roller.
‘You won’t last a day on the march,’ observed Reliko. ‘You’re fatter than the last time I seen you.’
‘No I’m not. In fact, I’m losing weight. I can feel it.’
‘Kennai felp too?’
‘Don’t even think it, Nep, you dried-up toad,’ drawled Ruffle.
Reliko set off to find Vastly Blank. Him and Badan and that was it. The rest… not even close.
Fiddler tugged free the stopper on the jug and then paused to survey the others. Gesler had caught a lizard by the tail and was letting it bite his thumb. Balm sat crosslegged, frowning at the furious lizard. Cord stood leaning against the bole of a tree-something he’d likely regret as it was leaking sap, but he was making such an effort with the pose no one was going to warn him off. Thom Tissy had brought up a salted slab of some local beast’s flank and was carving it into slices. Hellian was staring fixedly at the jug in Fiddler’s hands and Urb was staring fixedly at Hellian. The three others, the two South Dal Honese-Badan Gruk and Sinter-and Primly, were showing old loyalties by sitting close together on an old boom log and eyeing everyone else.
Fiddler wanted maybe five more sergeants here but finding anyone in the chaotic sprawl that was a camp about to march was just about impossible. He lifted the jug. ‘Cups ready, everyone,’ and he set out to make the round. ‘You only get half, Hellian,’ he said when he came opposite her, ‘since I can see you’re already well on your way.’
‘On my way where? Fillitup and don’ be cheap neither.’
Fiddler poured. ‘You know, you ain’t treating Beak’s gift with much respect.’
‘What giff? He never give me nothing but white hair and thank the gods that’s gone.’
When he had filled the other cups he returned to the rotted tree-stump and sat down once more. Fifty paces directly opposite was the river, the air above it swirling with swallows. After a moment he dropped his gaze and studied the soldiers arrayed round the old fisher’s campfire. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘this is the kind of meeting sergeants used to do back in the days of the Bridgeburners. It was a useful tradition and I’m thinking it’s time it was brought back. Next time we’ll get the rest of the company’s sergeants.’
‘What’s the point of it?’ Sinter asked.
‘Every squad has its own skills-we need to know what the others can do, and how they’re likely to do it. We work through all this and hopefully there won’t be any fatal surprises in a scrap.’
After a moment, Sinter nodded. ‘Makes sense.’
Cord asked, ‘You’re expecting us to run into trouble any time soon, Fid? That what your deck told you? Has this trouble got a face?’
‘He’s not saying,’ said Gesler. ‘But it’s a fair guess that we’ll know it when we see it.’
‘Bolkando,’ suggested Badan Gruk. ‘That’s the rumour anyway.’
Fiddler nodded. ‘Aye, we might have a bump or two with them, unless the Burned Tears and the Perish slap them into submission first. The Saphii seem to be the only ones happy to have us pay a visit.’
‘It’s pretty isolated, ringed in mountains,’ said Cord, crossing his arms. ‘Probably starving for a few fresh faces, even ones as ugly as ours.’
‘Thing is, I don’t know if we’re even heading into Saphinand,’ Fiddler pointed out. ‘From the maps I’ve seen it’s well to the north of the obvious route across the Wastelands.’
Cord grunted. ‘Crossing any place named the Wastelands seems like a bad idea. What’s in this Kolanse anyway? What’s driving the Adjunct? Are we heading into another war to right some insult delivered on the Malazan Empire? Why not just leave it to Laseen-it’s not like we owe the Empress a damned thing.’
Fiddler sighed. ‘I’m not here to chew on the Adjunct’s motives, Cord. Speculation’s useless. We’re her army. Where she leads, we follow-’
‘Why?’ Sinter almost barked the word. ‘Listen. Me and my sister half starved in a Letherii cell waiting on execution. Now, maybe the rest of you thought it was all fucking worth it taking down these Tiste Edur and their mad Emperor, but a lot of marines died and the rest of us are lucky to be here. If it wasn’t for that Beak you’d all be dead-but he’s gone. And so is Sinn. We got one High Mage and that’s it, and how good is he? Fiddler-can Quick Ben do what Beak did?’
Fiddler unstrapped his helm and drew it off. He scratched at his sweat-matted hair. ‘Quick Ben doesn’t work that way. Used to be he was more behind-the-scenes, but Hedge tells me it’s been different lately, maybe ever since Black Coral-’
‘Oh great,’ cut in Cord, ‘where the Bridgeburners were wiped out.’
‘That wasn’t his fault. Anyway, we all saw what he could do against the Edur mages off the coast of Seven Cities-he made them back down. And then, in Letheras, he chased off a damned dragon-’
‘I’m sure the cussers stuffed up its nose helped,’ Cord muttered.
Gesler grunted a sour laugh. ‘Well, Fid, Bridgeburner sergeants we ain’t, and I guess that’s pretty obvious. Can you imagine Whiskeyjack and Brackle and Picker and the rest moaning over every damned thing the way you got here? I can’t and I never even met them.’
Fiddler shrugged. ‘I wasn’t a sergeant back then, so I really can’t say. But something tells me they did plenty of chewing. Don’t forget from about Blackdog all the way down to Darujhistan somebody in the empire wanted them dead. Now, maybe they never had much to complain about when it came to Dujek Onearm, but at the same time it’s not like they knew what their High Fist was up to-it wasn’t their business.’
‘Even when that business killed soldiers?’ Sinter asked.
Fiddler’s laugh was harsh and cutting. ‘If that isn’t a commander’s business, what is? The Adjunct’s not our Hood-damned mother, Sinter. She’s the will behind the fist and we’re the fist. And sometimes we get bloodied, but that’s what comes when you’re hammering an enemy in the face.’
‘It’s all those teeth,’ added Gesler, ‘and I should know.’
But Sinter wasn’t letting go. ‘If we know what we’re getting into, we’ve got a better chance of surviving.’
Fiddler rose, his right hand slamming the helm on to the ground where it bounced and rolled into the firepit’s ashes. ‘Don’t you get it? Surviving isn’t what all this is about!’
As those words shot out bitter as a dying man’s spit, the gathered sergeants flinched back. Even Gesler’s eyes widened. The lizard took that moment to pull free and scamper away.
In the shocked silence Fiddler half-snarled and clawed at his beard, unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. Hood’s breath, Fid-you’re a damned fool. You let her get to you. That look in her eyes-she’s no natural soldier-what in Fener’s name is she even doing here? And how many more like her are there in this army?
‘Well,’ said Cord in a flat voice, ‘that must have been one Hood’s piss of a reading.’
Fiddler forced out a ragged breath. ‘Not a piss, Cord, a fucking deluge.’
And then Sinter surprised them all. ‘Glad that’s cleared up. Now, let’s talk about how we’re going to work together to make us the meanest Hood-shitting fist the Adjunct’s got.’
Lying flat behind a tangle of brush, Throatslitter struggled to swallow. His mouth and throat were suddenly so dry and hot he thought he might cough flames. He cursed himself for being so damned nosy. He spied to feed his curiosity and-he had to admit-to give himself an advantage on his fellow soldiers, reason for his sly expression and sardonic, knowing smile, and a man like him wasn’t satisfied if it was all just for show.
Well, now he knew.
Fid’s been dragged low. He says he doesn’t know Tavore’s business but he just showed them he was lying. He knows and he’s not telling. Aye, he’s not telling but he just told them anyway. Who needs details when we’re all ending up crow meat?
He might cough flames, aye, or laugh out a cloud of ashes. He needed to talk to Deadsmell, and he needed to find that other Talon hiding among the marines-there’d been markers, every now and then, calls for contact only a fellow Talon would recognize. He’d done a few of his own, but it seemed they were dancing round each other-and that had been fine, until now. If we’re heading for Hood’s grey gate, I want allies. Deadsmell for certain. And whoever my hidden dancer happens to be.
The sergeants were talking back and forth now, cool and calm as if Fiddler hadn’t just sentenced them all, and Throatslitter wasn’t paying much attention until he heard his name.
‘He can guard our backs if we need it,’ Balm was saying, not a hint of confusion in his voice.
‘I don’t think we will,’ Fiddler said. ‘When I spoke of betrayal I wasn’t meaning within our ranks.’
Betrayal? What betrayal? Gods, what have I missed?
‘Our allies?’ Cord asked. ‘I can’t believe it, not from the Perish or the Burned Tears. Who else is there?’
‘There’s the Letherii,’ said Sinter. ‘Our oversized escort.’
‘I can’t be any more specific,’ Fiddler responded. ‘Just make sure we keep our noses in the air. Badan Gruk, what’s your mage capable of?’
‘Nep Furrow? Well, he’s a bush warlock, mostly. Good at curses.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve not seen much else, though he once conjured up a seething ball of spiders and threw it at Skim-they looked real and bit hard enough to make Skim shriek.’
‘Could still have been an illusion, though,’ Sinter said. ‘Sometimes, Dal Honese curses edge close to Mockra-that’s how it sneaks into the victim’s thoughts.’
‘You seem to know something about all that,’ observed Gesler.
‘I’m not a mage,’ she replied. ‘But I can smell magics.’
‘Who’s our nastiest all-weapons-out fighter?’ Cord asked.
‘Skulldeath,’ said Sinter and Badan Gruk simultaneously.
Fiddler grunted and added, ‘Koryk and Smiles would agree with you. Maybe reluctantly from Koryk, but that’s just jealousy.’
Hellian laughed. ‘Glad t’hear he’s good f’something,’ and she drank from her cup and then wiped her mouth.
When it became obvious she wasn’t going to elaborate, Fiddler resumed. ‘We can throw forward a solid line of heavies if we need to. While we’re not short on sappers we are on munitions, but there’s nothing to be done for that. They’re good for night work, though. And they can crew the heavier weapons we got from the Letherii.’
The discussion went on, but Throatslitter was distracted by a faint scuffling sound beside his head. He turned to find himself eye to eye with a rat.
One of Bottle’s. That bastard.
But that’s a point, isn’t it? Fiddler’s not talked about him. He’s holding him back.
Now, that’s interesting.
He bared his teeth at the rat.
It returned the favour.
Riding along the well-beaten track leading to the Bonehunter encampment, Ruthan Gudd saw five other captains, all mounted, cantering to a rise between the Malazan and Letherii contingents. Grimacing, he angled his horse to join them. Palavers of this sort always depressed him. Captains got stuck from both ends, not privy to what the Fists knew and despised by their underlings. Lieutenants were usually either ambitious backstabbers or butt-licking fools. The only exception he’d heard about was Pores. Kindly was lucky having a rival like that, someone to match wits with, someone with enough malicious evil going on in his head to keep his captain entertained. Ruthan’s own lieutenant was a sullen Napan woman named Raband, who might be incompetent or potentially murderous. He’d lost his other two in Y’Ghatan.
The others had reined in and were eyeing Ruthan as he rode up, an array of expressions unified in their disapproval. Seniority put Kindly in charge. Below him was a black-haired Kanese, Skanarow, a woman of about forty, uncharacteristically tall and lean-limbed for a Kanese-probably from the southern shore-folk who had originally been a distinct tribe. Her features were harsh, seamed in scars as if she’d suckled among wildcats as a child.
Next was Faradan Sort, who’d served all over the place and maybe even stood the Stormwall-Ruthan, who knew more about that than most, suspected it was true. She held herself like someone who’d known the worst and never wanted to know it again. But there were experiences that a person could never leave behind, could never, ever forget. Besides, Ruthan had seen the etching on Sort’s sword, and that kind of damage could only come from the deadly touch of wand-magic.
Ruthan was next, followed by the two in-field promotions, a Hengian named Fast who was already taking aim on a fisthood, and an island-born ferret of a man named Untilly Rum, who’d been busted over from the marines after his soldiers had set a deathmark on him-for reasons unknown to any but them. Despite his background, Untilly could ride a horse like a damned Wickan, and so he was now commanding the light lancers.
‘Considerate of you to show up,’ said Kindly.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Ruthan replied, combing fingers through his beard as he studied the chaos that was the Malazan encampment. ‘We’ll be lucky to get away by tomorrow.’
‘My company’s ready,’ said Fast.
‘Maybe the last time you saw them,’ Skanarow said with a tight smile. ‘Probably scattered to a dozen whore tents by now.’
Fast’s pinched face darkened. ‘Sit and wait, was my order, so that’s what they’re doing. My lieutenants are making sure of it.’
‘If they’re any good then I doubt it,’ Skanarow replied. ‘They’ve been watching the soldiers getting bored, listening to the bickering get worse and worse, and maybe pulling a few off each other. If they got any wits in them, they’ll have cut them loose by now.’
‘Skanarow’s point, Captain Fast,’ said Faradan Sort, ‘is this: it doesn’t pay to get your squads up and ready too early. You’d do well to heed the advice of those of us with more experience.’
Fast bit down on a retort, managed a stiff nod.
Ruthan Gudd twisted in his saddle to observe the Letherii legions. Well-ordered bastards, that much was clear. Brys Beddict had them all close hobbled and waiting on the Malazans, patient as old women waiting for their husbands to die.
Kindly spoke: ‘Skanarow, Fast, you and the rest of the officers under Fist Blistig’s command must be seeing firsthand the problem we’re all facing. Fist Keneb is being pulled every which way when he should be worrying about his own companies and nothing else. He’s shouldering the logistics for Blistig’s companies and we’re suffering for it.’
‘There’s no lighting fires under Blistig these days,’ said Skanarow.
‘Can you take up the slack?’
She blinked. ‘The only reason I’m a captain, Kindly, is that I know how to lead soldiers into battle and I know what to do with them once there. I’ve no head for organization.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ve a pair of decent lieutenants who keep the rows tallied and nobody issued two left boots to march in. Without them I’d be as bad as Blistig.’
‘Logistics is no problem for me,’ opined Fast.
No one responded to that.
Kindly arched his back and winced. ‘It was said, back when he was commanding the Aren Garrison, that Blistig was a sharp, competent officer.’
‘Witnessing the slaughter of the Seventh and then Pormqual’s army broke him,’ Faradan Sort said. ‘I am surprised the Adjunct doesn’t see that.’
‘The one thing we can address,’ said Kindly, ‘is how we can help Keneb-we need the best Fist we have, captains, not exhausted, not overwhelmed.’
‘We can’t do a thing without the squad sergeants,’ Faradan Sort said. ‘I suggest we corral our respective noncoms into the effort.’
‘Risky,’ said Kindly.
Ruthan grunted-an unintentional response that drew unwelcome attention.
‘Pray, explain that,’ Kindly asked in a drawl.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe it suits us officers to think we’re the only ones capable of seeing how High Command is falling apart.’ He met Kindly’s gaze. ‘The sergeants see better than we do. Pulling them in sacrifices nothing and may even relieve them, since it’ll show we’re not all a bunch of blind twits, which is probably what they’re thinking right now.’ Having said his piece he subsided once more.
‘ “Who speaks little says a lot,” ’ Faradan Sort said, presumably quoting someone.
Kindly collected his reins. ‘It’s decided, then. Draw in the sergeants. Get them to straighten out their squads-Hood knows what Brys must be thinking right now, but I’m damned sure it’s not complimentary.’
As Kindly and the others rode away, Skanarow angled her mount in front of Ruthan’s, forcing him to halt. He squinted at her.
She surprised him with a grin and it transformed her face. ‘The old ones among my people say that sometimes you find a person with the roar of a sea squall in their eyes, and those ones, they say, have swum the deepest waters. In you, Ruthan Gudd, I now understand what they meant. But in you I see not a squall. I see a damned typhoon.’
He quickly looked away, ran fingers through his beard. ‘Just a spell of gas, Skanarow.’
She barked a laugh. ‘Have it your way, then. Avoid raw vegetables, Captain.’
He watched her ride off. Fisherfolk. You, Skanarow with the lovely smile, I need to avoid. Too bad.
Greymane, you always said that between the two of us I was the luckier one. Wrong, and if your ghost hearkens to its name, spare me any echo of laughter.
He paused, but all he could hear was the wind, and there was no humour in that moan.
‘Walk on, horse.’
Koryk looked a mess, trembling and wild-eyed, as he tottered back to the squad camp. Tarr frowned. ‘You remind me of a pathetic d’bayang addict, soldier.’
‘If paranoia comes with them shakes,’ said Cuttle, ‘he might as well be just that. Sit down, Koryk. There’s room in the wagon for ya come tomorrow.’
‘I was just sick,’ Koryk said in a weak growl. ‘I seen d’bayang addicts at the trader forts and I don’t like being compared to them. I made a vow, long ago, to never be that stupid. I was just sick. Give me a few days and I’ll be right enough to stick my fist in the next face gabbling about d’bayang.’
‘That sounds better,’ said Smiles. ‘Welcome back.’
Corabb appeared from a tent carrying Koryk’s weapon belt. ‘Honed and oiled your blade, Koryk. But it looks like the belt will need another notch. You need to get some meat back on your bones.’
‘Thanks, Mother, just don’t offer me a tit, all right?’ Sitting down on an old munitions box, he stared at the fire. The walk, Tarr judged, had exhausted the man. That boded ill for all the other soldiers who’d come down with the same thing. The tart water had worked, but the victims who’d recovered were wasted one and all, with a haunted look in their eyes.
‘Where’s Fid?’ Koryk asked.
Bottle stirred from where he had been lying, head on a bedroll and a cloth over his eyes. Blinking in the afternoon light he said, ‘Fid’s been listing all our faults. One of those secret meetings of all the sergeants.’
Tarr grunted. ‘Glad to hear it’s secret.’
‘We ain’t got any faults,’ said Smiles. ‘Except for you, Corporal. Hey Bottle, what else were they talking about?’
‘Nothing.’
That snatched everyone’s attention. Even Corabb looked up from the new hole he was driving through the thick leather belt-he’d jammed the awl into the palm of his left hand but didn’t seem to have noticed yet.
‘Hood knows you’re the worst liar I ever heard,’ said Cuttle.
‘Fid’s expecting a fight, and maybe soon. He’s tightening the squads. All right? There. Chew on that for a while.’
‘How hard is he working on that?’ the sapper asked, eyes narrowed down to slits.
Bottle looked ready to spit out something foul. ‘Hard.’
‘Shit,’ said Koryk. ‘Look at me. Shit.’
‘Take the wagon bed tomorrow and maybe the next day,’ said Tarr. ‘And then spell yourself for a few days after that. We’ve that long at least until we’re into possibly hostile territory. And eat, Koryk. A lot.’
‘Ow,’ said Corabb, lifting the hand with the awl dangling from the palm.
‘Pull it and see if you bleed,’ said Smiles. ‘If you don’t, go see a healer quick.’ Noticing the others looking at her she scowled. ‘Fish hooks. The, uh, fisherfolk who used to work for my family-well, I’ve seen it go bad, is all. Punctures that don’t bleed, I mean. Oh, piss off, then.’
‘I’m going for a walk,’ said Bottle.
Tarr watched the mage wander off, and then glanced over and found Cuttle staring at him. Aye, it’s looking bad.
Corabb plucked out the awl and managed to squeeze out a few drops of blood. He gave Smiles a triumphant grin, then returned to working on the belt.
Bottle wandered through the encampment, avoiding the disorganized mobs besieging the quartermaster’s HQ, the armourer compound, the leather and cordage workshops, and a host of other areas crowded with miserable, overworked specialists. Even outside the whore tents soldiers were getting into scraps. Gods, where are all the officers? We need military police-this is what happens when there’s no imperial oversight, no Claws, no adjutants or commissars.
Adjunct, why aren’t you doing anything about this? Hold on, Bottle-it ain’t your problem. You’ve got other problems to worry about. He found he was standing in the centre of a throughway, one hand clutching his hair. A storm of images warred in his head-all his rats were out, crouched in hiding in strategic places-but the one in Tavore’s command tent was being assailed by folds of burlap-someone had bagged it! He forced the other ones out of his head. You! Little Koryk! Pay attention! Start chewing as if your life depended on it-because maybe it does-get out of that sack!
‘You. You’re in Fiddler’s squad, right?’
Blinking, Bottle focused on the man standing in front of him. ‘Hedge. What do you want?’
The man smiled, and given the wayward glint in the man’s mud-grey eyes that was a rather frightening expression. ‘Quick Ben sent me to you.’
‘Really? Why? What’s he want?’
‘Never could answer that one-but you’re the one, Bottle, isn’t it?’
‘Look, I’m busy-’
Hedge lifted up a sack. ‘This is for you.’
‘Bastard!’ Bottle snatched the bag. A quick look inside. Oh, stop your chewing now, Koryk. Relax.
‘It was moving,’ said Hedge.
‘What?’
‘The sack. Got something alive in there? It was jumping around in my hand-’ He grunted then as someone collided with him.
An armoured regular, big as a bear, lumbered past.
‘Watch where you’re walking, y’damned ox!’
At Hedge’s snarl, the man turned. His broad, flat face assumed the hue of a beet. He stomped back, lips twisting.
Seeing the man’s huge hands closing into fists, Bottle stepped back in alarm. Hedge simply laughed.
The beet looked ready to explode.
Even as the first fist flew, Hedge was ducking under it, closing tight up against the man. The sapper’s hands shot between the soldier’s legs, grabbed, squeezed and yanked.
With a piercing shriek, the soldier doubled over.
Hedge added a knee to his jaw, flinging the head back upward. Then he drove an elbow into a cheekbone, audibly shattering it.
The huge man crumpled. Hedge stood directly over him. ‘You just went for the last living Bridgeburner. I’m guessing you won’t do that again, huh?’ Hedge then turned back to Bottle and smiled a second time. ‘Quick Ben wants to talk with you. Follow me.’
A few paces along, Bottle said, ‘You’re not, you know.’
‘Not what?’
‘The last living Bridgeburner. There’s Fiddler and Quick Ben, and I even heard about some survivors from Black Coral hiding out in Darujhistan-’
‘Retired or moved on every one of them. Fid said I should do the same and I thought about it, I really did. A new start and all that.’ He tugged at his leather cap. ‘But then I thought, what for? What’s so good about starting all over again? All that ground you covered the first time, why do it a second time, right? No-’ and he tapped the Bridgeburner sigil sewn on to his ratty rain-cape. ‘This is what I am, and it still means something.’
‘I expect that regular back there agrees with you.’
‘Aye, a good start. And even better, I had me a talk with Lieutenant Pores, and he’s giving me command of a squad of new recruits. The Bridgeburners ain’t dead after all. And I hooked up with a Letherii alchemist, to see if we can come up with replacements for the Moranth munitions-he’s got this amazing powder, which I’m calling Blue. You mix it and then get it inside a clay ball which you seal right away. In about half a day the mix is seasoned and set.’
Bottle wasn’t much interested, but he asked anyway. ‘Burns good, does it?’
‘Don’t burn at all. That’s the beauty of Blue, my friend.’ Hedge laughed. ‘Not a flicker of flame, not a whisper of smoke. We’re working on others, too. Eaters, Sliders, Smarters. And I got two assault weapons-a local arbalest and an onager-we’re fitting clay heads on the quarrels. And I got me a new lobber, too.’ He was almost jumping with excitement as he led Bottle through the camp. ‘My first squad’s going to be all sappers along with whatever other talents they got. I was thinking-imagine a whole Bridgeburner army, say, five thousand, all trained as marines, of course. With heavies, mages, sneaks and healers, but every one of them is also trained as a sapper, an engineer, right?’
‘Sounds terrifying.’
‘Aye, doesn’t it? There.’ He pointed. ‘That tent. Quick’s in there. Or he said he would be, once he got back from the command tent. Anyway, I got to go collect my squad.’
Hedge walked off.
Bottle tried to imagine five thousand Hedges, with the real Hedge in charge. Hood’s breath, I’d want a continent between me and them. Maybe two. He repressed a shiver, and then headed to the tent. ‘Quick? You in there?’
The flap rippled.
Scowling, Bottle crouched and ducked inside.
‘Stop spying on the Adjunct and me,’ the wizard said. He was sitting at the far end, crosslegged. In front of him and crowding the earthen floor in the tent’s centre was a heap of what looked like children’s dolls.
Bottle sat down. ‘Can I play?’
‘Funny. Trust me, these things you don’t want to play with.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. My grandmother-’
‘I’m tying threads, Bottle. You want to get yourself tangled in that?’
Bottle shrank back. ‘Ugh, no thanks.’
Quick Ben bared his smallish teeth, a neat white row. ‘The mystery is, there’s at least three in there I can’t even identify. A woman, a girl and some bearded bastard who feels close enough to spit on.’
‘Who are they tied to?’
The wizard nodded. ‘Your granny taught you way too much, Bottle. I already told Fiddler to treat you as our shaved knuckle. Aye, I’ve been trying to work that out, but the skein’s still a bit of a mess, as you can see.’
‘You’re rushing it too much,’ Bottle said. ‘Leave them to shake loose on their own.’
‘Maybe so.’
‘So, what have you and the Adjunct got to be so secret about? If I really am your shaved knuckle, I need to know things like that, so I know what to do when it needs doing.’
‘Maybe it’s her,’ mused Quick Ben, ‘or more likely it was T’amber. They’ve sniffed me out, Bottle. They’ve edged closer than anybody’s ever done, and that includes Whiskeyjack.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Maybe Kallor. Maybe Rake-yes, Rake probably saw clear enough-was it any wonder I avoided him? Well, Gothos, sure, but-’
‘High Mage,’ cut in Bottle, ‘what are you going on about?’
Quick Ben started, and then glared. ‘Distracted, sorry. You don’t need to spy on her-Lostara saw the rat and nearly chopped it in half. I managed to intervene, made up some story about using it for an augury. If anything vital comes up, I will let you know.’
‘A whisper in my skull.’
‘We’re heading into a maze, Bottle. The Adjunct’s ageing in front of my eyes, trying to figure out a way through the Wastelands. Have you tried soul-riding anything into it? It’s a snarl of potent energies, massive blind-spots, and a thousand layers of warring rituals, sanctified grounds, curse-holes, blood-pits, skin-sinks. I try and just reel back, head ready to split, tasting blood in my mouth.’
‘The ghost of a gate,’ said Bottle.
Quick Ben’s eyes glittered in the gloom. ‘An area of influence, yes, but that ghost gate, it’s wandered-it’s not even there any more, in the Wastelands, I mean.’
‘East of the Wastelands,’ said Bottle. ‘That’s where we’ll find it, and that’s where we’re going, isn’t it?’
Quick Ben nodded. ‘Better the ghost than the real thing.’
‘Familiar with the real one, are you, High Mage?’
He glanced away. ‘She’s worked that one out all on her own. Too canny, too damned unknowable.’
‘Do you think she’s in communication with her brother?’
‘I don’t dare ask,’ Quick Ben admitted. ‘She’s like Dujek that way. Some things you just don’t bring up. But, you know, that might explain a lot of things.’
‘But then ask yourself this,’ said Bottle. ‘What if she isn’t?’
The wizard was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed. ‘If not Paran, then who?’
‘Right.’
‘That’s a nasty question.’
‘I don’t spy on the Adjunct just when she has you for company, Quick Ben. Most of the time I watch her, it’s when she’s alone.’
‘That’s pathetic-’
‘Fuck the jokes, High Mage. Our Adjunct knows things. And I want to know how. I want to know if she has company none of us know a thing about. Now, if you want me to stop doing that, give me a solid reason. You say she’s got close to you. Have you returned the favour?’
‘I would, if I knew how. That otataral sword pushes me away-it’s what they’re made to do, isn’t it.’ Seeing the sceptical expression opposite him, he scowled. ‘What?’
‘It doesn’t push you as hard as you like to pretend it does. The risk is that the harder and deeper you push through the otataral, the more of yourself you potentially expose-and if she catches sight of you, she won’t just be close to knowing you, she’ll be certain.’ He jabbed a finger at Quick Ben. ‘And that is what you don’t want to happen, and it’s the real reason why you don’t dare push through. So, your only chance is me. Do I resume spying or not?’
‘Lostara’s suspicious-’
‘When the Adjunct is presumably alone.’
The High Mage hesitated, and then nodded. ‘Found anything yet?’
‘No. She’s not in the habit of thinking out loud, that much is obvious. She doesn’t pray, and I’ve yet to hear a one-sided conversation.’
‘Could you be blinded?’
‘I could, yes, but I’d sense the gaps of awareness. I think. Depending on how good the geas is.’
‘If it’s a geas directed specifically at your extra eyes?’
‘It would have to be. But you’re right, something specific, Mockra maybe, that slips into the rat’s tiny brain and paints a pretty picture of nothing happening. If that’s the case, then I don’t know how I could do anything about it, because with the local effect of the otataral, the source of that sorcery would be an appallingly high level-a damned god’s level, I mean.’
‘Or an Elder’s.’
‘These waters are too deep for a mortal like me, Quick Ben. My spying only works because it’s passive. Strictly speaking, riding a soul isn’t magic, not in the common sense.’
‘Then seek out something on the Wastelands, Bottle. See what you can see, because I can’t get close and neither, I think, can the Adjunct. Find a wolf, or a coyote-they like to hang round armies and such. Who’s out there?’
‘I’ll try. But if it’s that risky, you might lose me. I might lose me, which is even worse.’
Quick Ben smiled his little smile and reached into the heap of dolls. ‘That’s why I’ve tied this thread to this particular doll.’
Bottle hissed. ‘You miserable shit.’
‘Stop complaining. I’ll pull you back if you get into trouble. That’s a promise.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Bottle, rising.
The High Mage looked up in surprise. ‘What’s to think about?’
‘Quick Ben, if it’s that dangerous in the Wastelands, hasn’t it occurred to you that if I’m grabbed, you may not be the one doing the pulling on that thread? With you suddenly drooling and playing with dolls for real, the Adjunct and, more importantly, her army, are well and truly doomed.’
‘I can hold my own,’ Quick Ben growled.
‘How do you know you can? You don’t even know what’s out there. And why would I want to put myself in the middle of a tugging contest? I might well get torn to pieces.’
‘Since that wasn’t the first thing you brought up,’ said Quick Ben, with a sly look, ‘I expect you have a few contingency plans to deal with the possibility.’
‘I said I’d think about it.’
‘Don’t wait too long deciding, Bottle.’
‘Two full crates of that smoked sausage, aye. Fist Keneb’s orders.’
‘Will do, Master Sergeant.’
‘Strap them tight, remember,’ Pores reminded the spotty-faced young man and was pleased at the eager nod. Quartermaster division always pulled in the soldiers who couldn’t fight their way out of a school playground, and they had two ways of going once they’d got settled-either puppies who jumped at the snap of an officer’s fingers or the ones who built impregnable fortresses out of regulations and then hoarded supplies somewhere inside-as if to give anything up drew blood and worse. Those ones Pores had made a career out of crushing; but at times like this, the puppies were the ones he wanted.
He cast a surreptitious glance around, but the chaos swirled unabated on all sides and no one was paying him any attention. And the puppy was happy at being collared, so when accosted he could shake his head, duck down and use the various lines Pores himself used. ‘Fist Keneb’s orders, take it up with him.’ And ‘Master Sergeant’s got recruits to outfit, fifty of ’em, and Captain Kindly said to do it quick.’ Keneb was safe enough since at the moment nobody apart from his personal adjutants could even get close to him; and as for Kindly, well, the name itself usually sucked the blood from even the heartiest faces.
It was a minor and mostly irrelevant detail that Pores had somehow lost his recruits. Snatched away from the marine squads by someone nobody knew anything about. If trouble arrived Pores could look innocent and point fingers at the squad sergeants. Never make a roadblock of yourself on trouble’s road. No, make yourself a bridge instead, with stones slick as grease.
I should compose a mid-level officer’s guide to continued health, indolence and undeserved prosperity. But then, if I did that, I’d have to be out of the battle, no longer in competition, as it were. Say, retired somewhere nice. Like a palace nobody was using. And that would be my crowning feat-requisitioning a palace.
‘Queen Frabalav’s orders, sir. If you got a problem, you can always discuss it with her one-eyed torturer.’
But for now, fine Letherii smoked sausages, three crates of excellent wine, a cask of cane syrup, all for Fist Keneb (not that he’d ever see any of that); and extra blankets, extra rations, officer boots including cavalry high-steppers, rank sigils and torcs for corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants, all for his fifty or was it sixty vanished recruits-which translated into Pores’s very own private stock for those soldiers on the march who lost things but didn’t want to be officially docked for replacements.
He’d already commandeered three wagons with decent teams, under guard at the moment by soldiers from Primly’s squad. It occurred to him he might have to draw those three squads in as partners in his black-market operation, but that shouldn’t be too hard. Envy diminished the more one shared the rewards, after all, and with something at stake those soldiers would have the proper incentive when it came to security and whatnot.
All in all, things were shaping up nicely.
‘Hey there, what’s in that box?’
‘Combs, sir-’
‘Ah, for Captain Kindly then.’
‘Aye, sir. Personal requisition-’
‘Excellent. I’ll take those to him myself.’
‘Well, uhm-’
‘Not only is the captain my immediate superior, soldier, I also happen to be his barber.’
‘Oh, right. Here you go, sir-just a signature here-that wax bar, yes sir, that’s the one.’
Smiling, Pores drew out his reasonable counterfeit of Kindly’s own seal and pressed it firmly down on the wax bar. ‘Smart lad, keeping things proper is what makes an army work.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hedge’s pleasure at seeing that his Letherii alchemist had rounded up the new recruits as he had ordered quickly drained away when he cast a gauging eye on the forty would-be soldiers sitting not fifteen paces from the company latrine trench. When he first approached the bivouac he’d thought they were waving at him, but turned out it was just the swarming flies.
‘Bavedict!’ he called to his alchemist, ‘get ’em on their feet!’
The alchemist gathered up his long braid and with a practised twist spun it into a coil atop his head, where the grease held it fast, and then rose from the peculiar spike-stool he’d set up outside his hide tent. ‘Captain Hedge, the last mix is ready to set and the special rain-capes were delivered by my brother half a bell ago. I have what I need to do some painting.’
‘That’s great. This is all of them?’ he asked, nodding towards the recruits.
Bavedict’s thin lips tightened in a grimace. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘How long have they been sitting in that stench?’
‘A while. Not ready to do any thinking for themselves yet-but that’s what’s to be expected from us Letherii. Soldiers do what they’re told to do and that’s that.’
Hedge sighed.
‘There’s two acting sergeants,’ Bavedict added. ‘The ones with their backs to us.’
‘Names?’
‘Sunrise-he’s the one with the moustache. And Nose Stream.’
‘Well now,’ Hedge said, ‘who named them?’
‘Some Master Sergeant named Pores.’
‘I take it he wasn’t around when you snatched them.’
‘They’d been tied to some squads and those squads were none too pleased about it anyway. So it wasn’t hard cutting them loose.’
‘Good.’ Hedge glanced over at Bavedict’s carriage, a huge, solid-looking thing of black varnished wood and brass fittings; he then squinted at the four black horses waiting in their harnesses. ‘You was making a good living, Bavedict, leading me to wonder all over again what you’re doing here.’
‘Like I said, I got too close a look at what one of those cussers of yours can do-to a damned dragon, no less. My shop’s nothing but kindling.’ He paused and balanced himself on one foot, the other one set against the leg just below the knee. ‘But mostly professional curiosity, Captain, ever a boon and a bane both. So, you just keep telling me anything and everything you recall about the characteristics of the various Moranth alchemies, and I’ll keep inventing my own brand of munitions for your sappers.’
‘My sappers, aye. Now I better go and meet-’
‘Here come two of ’em now, Captain.’
He turned and almost stepped back. Two enormous, sweaty women had fixed small eyes on him and were closing in.
They saluted and the blonde one said, ‘Corporal Sweetlard, sir, and this is Corporal Rumjugs. We got a request, sir.’
‘Go on.’
‘We want to move from where we was put down. Too many flies, sir.’
‘An army never marches or camps alone, Corporal,’ said Hedge. ‘We got rats, we got mice, we got capemoths and crows, ravens and rhizan. And we got flies.’
‘That’s true enough, sir,’ said the black-haired one, Rumjugs, ‘but even over here there ain’t so many of ’em. Ten more paces between us and the trench there, sir, is all we’re asking.’
‘Your first lesson,’ said Hedge. ‘If the choice is between comfortable and miserable, choose comfortable-don’t wait for any damned orders neither. Distracted and irritated makes you more tired. Tired gets you killed. If it’s hot look for shade. If it’s cold bundle t’gether when not on post. If you’re in a bad spot for flies, find a better one close by and move. Now, I got a question for you two. Why are you bringing me this request and not your sergeants?’
‘They was going to,’ said Rumjugs, ‘but then me and Sweet here, we pointed out that you’re a man and we’re whores or used to be, and you was more likely to be nice to us than to them. Assuming you prefer women an’ not men.’
‘Good assumption and smart thinking. Now, go back there and get everybody on their feet and over here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He returned their salute and watched them wheeze and waddle back to the others.
Bavedict moved up beside him. ‘Maybe there’s hope for them after all.’
‘Just needs teasing out, that’s all,’ said Hedge. ‘Now, find a wax tablet or something-I need a list of their names made up-my memory is bad these days, ever since I died and came back, in fact.’
The alchemist blinked, and then recovered. ‘Right away, Captain.’
All in all, Hedge concluded, a decent start.
Lostara slammed the knife back into its sheath, then walked to examine an array of tribal trophies lining one wall of the presence chamber. ‘Fist Keneb is not at his best,’ she said. Behind her in the centre of the room, the Adjunct said nothing. After a moment Lostara went on. ‘Grub’s disappearance hit him hard. And the thought that he might have been swallowed up by an Azath is enough to curdle anyone’s toes. It’s not helping that Fist Blistig seems to have decided he’s already good as dead.’
She turned to see the Adjunct slowly drawing off her gauntlets. Tavore’s face was pale, a taut web of lines trapping her eyes. She’d lost weight, further reducing the few feminine traits she possessed. Beyond grief waited emptiness, a place where loneliness haunted in mocking company, and memories were entombed in cold stone. The woman that was the Adjunct had decided that no one would ever take T’amber’s place. Tavore’s last tie to the gentler gifts of humanity had been severed. Now there was nothing left. Nothing but her army, which looked ready to unravel all on its own-and even to this she seemed indifferent.
‘It’s not like the King to keep us waiting,’ Lostara muttered, reaching to unsheathe her knife.
‘Leave it,’ the Adjunct snapped.
‘Of course. My apologies, Adjunct.’ She dropped her hand and resumed her uninterested examination of the artifacts. ‘These Letherii devoured a lot of tribes.’
‘Empires will, Lieutenant.’
‘I imagine this Kolanse did the same. It is an empire, is it not?’
‘I do not know,’ the Adjunct replied, then added, ‘it does not matter.’
‘It doesn’t?’
But with her next words it was clear that the Adjunct was not interested in elaborating. ‘My predecessor, a woman named Lorn, was murdered in a street in Darujhistan. She had, by that point, completed her tasks, insofar as anyone can tell. Her death seemed to be little more than ill luck, a mugging or something similar. Her corpse was deposited in a pauper’s pit.’
‘Forgive me, Adjunct, but what is this story in aid of?’
‘Legacies are never what one would hope for, are they, Captain? In the end, it does not matter what was achieved. Fate holds no tally of past triumphs, courageous deeds, or moments of profound integrity.’
‘I suppose not, Adjunct.’
‘Conversely, there is no grim list of failures, moments of cowardice or dishonour. The wax is smooth, the past melted away-if it ever existed at all.’ Those snared eyes fixed briefly on Lostara before sliding away once more. ‘She died on a street, just one more victim of mischance. A death devoid of magic.’
Lostara’s attention dropped down to the sword strapped at Tavore’s hip. ‘Most deaths are, Adjunct.’
Tavore nodded. ‘The wax melts. There is, I think, some comfort to be found in that. A small measure of… release.’
Is that the best you can hope for, Tavore? Gods below. ‘Lorn was not there to gauge the worth of her legacy, if that is what you mean, Adjunct. Which was probably a mercy.’
‘I sometimes think that fate and mercy are often one and the same.’
The notion chilled Lostara.
‘The army,’ continued the Adjunct, ‘will sort itself out once on the march. I give them this touch of chaos, of near anarchy. As I do for Fists Keneb and Blistig. I have my reasons.’
‘Yes, Adjunct.’
‘In the King’s presence, Captain, I expect you to refrain from any undue attention to the knife at your side.’
‘As you command, Adjunct.’
Moments later an inner door swung open and King Tehol strode in, trailed by the Chancellor. ‘My sincerest apologies, Adjunct. It’s all my Ceda’s fault, not that you need to know that, but then’-and he smiled as he sat down on the raised chair-‘now you do, and I don’t mind telling what a relief that is.’
‘You summoned us, Majesty,’ said Adjunct.
‘Did I? Oh yes, so I did. Relax, there’s no crisis-well, none that concerns you directly. Well, not in Letheras, anyway. Not at the moment, I mean. Ceda, step forward there now! Adjunct Tavore, we have a gift for you. In expression of our deepest gratitude.’
Queen Janath had arrived as well, moving up to stand to one side of her husband, one hand resting on the chair’s high back.
Bugg was holding a small hand-polished wooden case, which he now set into the Adjunct’s hands.
The chamber was silent as Tavore unlatched the lid and tilted it back to reveal a water-etched dagger. The grip and pommel were both plain, functional, and as far as Lostara could see, the blade itself, barring the etched swirls, was unspectacular. After a moment’s examination, the Adjunct shut the lid and looked up at the King. ‘Thank you, sire. I shall treasure this-’
‘Hold on,’ said Tehol, rising and walking over. ‘Let’s see that thing-’ and he lifted the lid once more, and then faced Bugg. ‘Couldn’t you have selected something prettier than that, Ceda? Why, I imagine the Chancellor is mortified now that he’s seen it!’
‘He is, sire. Alas, the Ceda was under certain constraints-’
‘Excuse me,’ said the Adjunct, ‘am I to understand that this weapon is ensorcelled? I am afraid that such piquancy will be lost in my presence.’
The old man smiled. ‘I have done what I can, Tavore of House Paran. When you face your most dire necessity, look to this weapon.’
The Adjunct almost stepped back and Lostara saw what little colour there had been in her face suddenly drain away. ‘My most… dire… necessity? Ceda-’
‘As I said, Adjunct,’ Bugg replied, his gaze unwavering. ‘When blood is required. When blood is needed. In the name of survival, and in that name alone.’
Lostara saw that Tavore was at a loss for words-and she had no idea why. Unless the Adjunct already knows what that necessity will be. Knows, and is horrified by this gift. Bowing, Adjunct closed the lid a second time and stepped back.
Tehol was frowning at Bugg. After a moment he returned to the modest chair and sat down once more. ‘Fare you well on your journey, Adjunct. And you as well, Lostara Yil. Do not neglect my brother, he has many talents. A lot more than me, that’s for certain-’ and at seeing Bugg’s nod he scowled.
Janath reached down and patted his shoulder.
Tehol’s scowl deepened. ‘Look to Brys Beddict during your traverse of Bolkando Kingdom. We are very familiar with our neighbours, and his advice should prove valuable.’
‘I shall, sire,’ the Adjunct said.
And suddenly it was time to go.
Moments after the Malazans had departed, Tehol glanced over at Bugg. ‘My, you look miserable.’
‘I dislike departures, sire. There is ever a hint of… finality.’
Janath came round and sat on one of the flanking benches. ‘You do not expect to see the Malazans again?’
He hesitated, and then said, ‘No.’
‘What of Brys?’ Tehol asked.
Bugg blinked and opened his mouth to reply but the King raised a hand. ‘No, that question should not have been asked. I’m sorry, old friend.’
‘Sire, your brother possesses unexplored… depths. Fortitude, unassailable fidelity to honour-and, as you well know, he carries within him a certain legacy, and while I cannot gauge the measure of that legacy, I believe it has the potential to be vast.’
‘You danced carefully there,’ Janath observed.
‘I did.’
Sighing, Tehol leaned back on the chair. ‘This seems a messy conclusion to things, doesn’t it? Little that amuses, even less that entertains. You must know I prefer to leap from one delightful absurdity to another. My last gesture on the Malazan stage should have been the highest of dramas is my feeling. Instead, I taste something very much like ashes in my mouth and that is most unpleasant.’
‘Perhaps some wine will wash things clean,’ suggested Bugg.
‘Won’t hurt. Pour us some, please. You, guard, come and join us-standing there doing nothing must be a dreadful bore. No need to gape like that, I assure you. Doff that helm and relax-there’s another guard just like you on the other side of that door, after all. Let him bear the added burden of diligence. Tell us about yourself. Family, friends, hobbies, scandals-’
‘Sire,’ warned Bugg.
‘Or just join us in a drink and feel under no pressure to say anything at all. This shall be one of those interludes swiftly glossed over in the portentous histories of great and mediocre kings. We sit in the desultory aftermath, oblivious to omens and whatever storm waits behind yonder horizon. Ah, thank you, Bugg-my Queen, accept that goblet and come sit on my knee-oh, don’t make that kind of face, we need to compose the proper scene. I insist and since I’m King I can do that, or so I read somewhere. Now, let’s see… yes, Bugg, stand right over there-oh, massaging your brow is the perfect pose. And you, dearest guard-how did you manage to hide all that hair? And how come I never knew you were a woman? Never mind, you’re an unexpected delight-ow, calm down, wife-oh, that’s me who needs to calm down. Sorry. Women in uniforms and all that. Guard, that dangling helm is exquisite by the way, take a mouthful and do pass judgement on the vintage, yes, like that, oh, most perfect!
‘Now, it’s just occurred to me that we’re missing something crucial. Ah, yes, an artist. Bugg, have we a court artist? We need an artist! Find us an artist! Nobody move!’
RIDDLE OF THE ROAD OF GALLAN
SHAKE CHANT
When leading his warriors, warchief maral eb of the Barahn White Face Barghast liked to imagine himself as the tip of a barbed spearhead, hungry to wound, unerring in its drive. Slashes of red ochre cut through the white paint of his death-face, ran jagged tracks down his arms. His bronze brigandine hauberk and scaled skirt bore the muted tones of blood long dead, and the red-tipped porcupine quills jutting from the spikes of his black, greased hair clattered as he trotted in front of four thousand seasoned warriors.
The stink from the severed heads swinging from the iron-sheathed standards crowding behind the warchief left a familiar sting in the back of his broad, flattened nose, a cloying presence at the close of his throat, and he was pleased. Pleased, especially, that his two younger brothers carried a pair of those standards.
They’d stumbled upon the Akrynnai caravan late yesterday afternoon. A pathetic half-dozen guards, five drovers, the merchant and her family. It had been quick work, yet no less delicious for its brevity, tainted only when the merchant took a knife to her daughters and then slit her own throat-gestures of impressive courage that cheated his warriors of their fun. The puny horses in the herd they had slaughtered and feasted upon that night.
Beneath a cloudless sky, the war-party was cutting westward. A week’s travel would find it in the Kryn Freetrade, the centre of all eastern commerce with Lether. Maral Eb would slaughter everyone and then assume control of the caravanserai and all the trader forts. He would make himself rich and his people powerful. His triumph would elevate the Barahn to the position they rightfully deserved among the White Faces. Onos Toolan would be deposed and the other clans would flock to join Maral. He would carve out an empire, selling Akrynnai and D’ras slaves until the vast plains belonged to the Barghast and no one else. He would set heavy tariffs on the Saphii and Bolkando, and he would build a vast city in Kryn, raising a palace and establishing impregnable fortresses along the borderlands.
His allies among the Senan had already been instructed to steal for him the twin daughters of Hetan. He would bring them into his own household and when they reached blooding age he would take them as his wives. Hetan’s fate he left to others. There was the young boy, the true son of the Imass, and he would have to be killed, of course. Along with Cafal, to end once and for all Humbrall Taur’s line.
His musings on the glory awaiting him were interrupted by the sudden appearance ahead of two of his scouts, carrying a body between them.
Another Barghast-but not one of his own.
Maral Eb held up one hand, halting his war-party, and then jogged forward to meet the scouts.
The Barghast was a mess. His left arm was gone below the elbow and the stump seethed with maggots. Fires had melted away half his face and fragments of his armour of tin coinage glittered amidst the weltered ruin of skin and meat on his chest. By the fetishes dangling from his belt Maral knew him to be a Snakehunter, one of the smaller clans.
He scowled and waved at the flies. ‘Does he live?’
One of the scouts nodded and then added, ‘Not for much longer, Warchief.’
‘Set him down, gently now.’ Maral Eb moved up and knelt beside the young warrior. He swallowed down his disgust and said, ‘Snakehunter, open your eyes. I am Maral Eb of the Barahn. Speak to me, give me your last words. What has befallen you?’
The one surviving eye that opened was thick with mucus, a dirty yellow rimmed in cracked, swollen flesh. The mouth worked for a moment, and then raw words broke loose. ‘I am Benden Ledag, son of Karavt and Elor. Remember me. I alone survived. I am the last Snakehunter, the last.’
‘Does an Akrynnai army await me?’
‘I do not know what awaits you, Maral Eb. But I know what awaits me-damnation.’ The face twisted with pain.
‘Open your eye-look at me, warrior! Speak to me of your slayer!’
‘Damnation, yes. For I fled. I did not stand, did not die with my kin. I ran. A terrified hare, a leap-mouse in the grass.’ Speech was drying out the last fluids within him and his breath grated. ‘Run, Maral Eb. Show me how… how cowards live.’
Maral Eb made a fist to strike the babbling fool, and then forced himself to relax. ‘The Barahn fear no enemy. We shall avenge you, Benden Ledag. We shall avenge the Snakehunter. And may the souls of your fallen kin hunt you down.’
The dying fool somehow managed a smile. ‘I will wait for them. I will have a joke, yes, one that will make them smile-as was my way. Zaravow, though, he has no reason to laugh, for I stole his wife-I stole her pleasure-’ he hacked out a laugh. ‘It is what weak men do… have always done.’ The eye suddenly sharpened, fixed on Maral Eb. ‘And you, Barahn, I will wait for you, too.’ The smile faltered, the face lost its clenched pain, and the wind’s air flowed unclaimed through the gape of his mouth.
Maral Eb stared down into that unseeing eye for a moment. Then he cursed and straightened. ‘Leave him to the crows,’ he said. ‘Sound the horns-draw in the forward scouts. We shall camp here and ready ourselves-there is vengeance in our future, and it shall be sweet.’
Two of the six women dragged what was left of the horse trader to the gully cutting down the hillside and rolled him into it. Hearing snakes slithering in the thick brush of the gully, they quickly backed away and returned to the others.
Hessanrala, warleader of this troop of Skincuts, glanced over from the makeshift bridle she was fixing to her new horse, grinned as both women tugged fistfuls of grass to clean the blood and semen from their hands, and said, ‘See to your horses.’
The one closest to her flung the stained grasses to one side. ‘A nest of vipers,’ she said. ‘Every clump of sagebrush and rillfire swarms with them.’
‘Such omens haunt us,’ the other one muttered.
Hessanrala scowled. ‘A knife to your words, Ralata.’ She waved one hand. ‘Look at this good fortune. Horses for each of us and three more to spare, a bag of coins and mint-soaked bhederin and three skins of water-and did we not amuse ourselves with the pathetic creature? Did we not teach him the gifts of pain?’
‘This is all true,’ said Ralata, ‘but I have felt shadows in the night, and the whisper of dread wings. Something stalks us, Hessanrala.’
In reply the warleader snarled and turned away. She vaulted on to her horse. ‘We are Ahkrata Barghast. Skincuts-and who does not fear the women slayers of the Ahkrata?’ She glared at the others, as if seeking the proper acknowledgement, and seemed satisfied as they drew their mounts round to face her.
Ralata spat into her hands and took charge of the only saddled horse-the Akrynnai trader’s very own, which she had claimed by right of being the first to touch her blade to the man’s flesh. She set a boot into the stirrup and swung on to the beast’s back. Hessanrala was young. This was her first time as warleader, and she was trying too hard. It was custom that a seasoned warrior volunteer to accompany a new warleader’s troop, lest matters go awry. But Hessanrala was not interested in heeding Ralata, seeing wisdom as fear, caution as cowardice.
She adjusted the fragments of Moranth chitin that served as armour among the Ahkrata, and made sure the chest-plate of Gold was properly centred. Then took a moment to resettle into her nostrils the broad hollow bone plugs that made Ahkrata women the most beautiful among all the White Face Barghast. She swung her horse to face Hessanrala.
‘This trader,’ said the warleader with a faint snarl directed at Ralata, ‘was returning to his kin as we all know, having chased him from our camp. We can see the ancient trail he was using. We shall follow it, find the Akrynnai huts, and kill everyone we find.’
‘The path leads north,’ said Ralata. ‘We know nothing of what lies in that direction-we might ride into a camp of a thousand Akrynnai warriors.’
‘Ralata bleats like a newborn kid, but I hear no pierce-cry of a hawk.’ Hessanrala looked to the others. ‘Do any of you hear the winged hunter? No, only Ralata.’
Sighing, Ralata made a gesture of release. ‘I am done with you, Hessanrala. I return to our camp, and how many women will come to my Skincut cry? Not five. No, I shall be warleader to a hundred, perhaps more. You, Hessanrala, shall not live long-’ and she looked to the others, was dismayed to see their expressions of disgust and contempt-but they too were young. ‘Follow her into the north, warriors, and you may not return. Those who would join me, do so now.’
When none made a move, Ralata shrugged and swung her horse round. She set off, southward.
Once past a rise and out of sight of the troop-which had cantered off in the opposite direction-Ralata reined in. She would have the blood of five foolish girls on her hands. Most would understand her reasons for leaving. They knew Hessanrala, after all. But the families that lost daughters would turn away.
There was a hawk out there. She knew it with certainty. And the five kids had no shepherd, no hound to guard them. Well, she would be that hound, low in the grasses on their trail, ever watchful. And, should the hawk strike, she would save as many as she could.
She set out to follow them.
The low cairns set in a row across the hill’s summit and leading down the slope were almost entirely overgrown. Windblown soils had heaped up along one side, providing purchase for rillfire trees, their gnarled, low branches spreading out in swaths of sharp thorns. High grasses knotted the other sides. But Tool knew the piles of stone for what they were-ancient blinds and runs built by Imass hunters-and so he was not surprised when they reached the end of the slope and found themselves at the edge of a precipice. Below was a sinkhole, its base thick with skalberry trees. Buried beneath that soil, he knew, there were bones, stacked thick, two or even three times the height of a grown man. In this place, Imass had driven herds to their deaths in great seasonal hunts. If one were to dig beneath the skalberry trees, one would find the remains of bhed and tenag: their bones and shattered horns, tusks, and embedded spear-points of grey chert; one would find, here and there, the skeletons of ay that had been dragged over the cliff’s edge in their zeal-the wolves’ canines filed down to mark them as pups found in the wild, too fierce to have their massive fangs left in place; and perhaps the occasional okral, for the plains bears often tracked the bhed herds and found themselves caught up in the stampedes, especially when fire was used.
Generation upon generation of deadly hunts mapped out in those layers, until all the tenag were gone, and with them the okral, and indeed the ay-and the wind was hollow and empty of life, no howls, no shrill trumpeting from bull tenag, and even the bhed had given way to their smaller cousins, the bhederin-who would have vanished too, had their two-legged hunters thrived.
But they did not thrive, and Onos T’oolan knew the reason for that.
He stood at the edge of the sinkhole, anguish deep in his soul, and he longed for the return of the great beasts of his youth. Eyes scanning the lie of the land to the sides of the pit, he could see where the harvest had been processed-the slabs of meat brought up to the women who waited beside smaller, skin-lined pits filled with water that steamed as heated stones built it to boiling-and yes, he could see the rumpled ground evincing those cooking pits, and clumps of greenery marking hearths-and there, to one side, a huge flattened boulder, its slightly concave surface pocked where longbones had been split to extract the marrow.
He could almost smell the reek, could almost hear the droning chants and buzzing insects. Coyotes out on the fringes, awaiting their turn. Carrion birds scolding in the sky overhead, the flit of rhizan and the whisper of capemoths. Drifts of smoke redolent with sizzling fat and scorched hair.
There had been a last hunt, a last season, a last night of contented songs round fires. The following year saw no one in this place. The wind wandered alone, the half-butchered carcasses grew tough as leather in the sinkhole, and flowers fluttered where blood had once pooled.
Did the wind mourn with no song to carry on its breath? Or did it hover, waiting in terror for the first cries of bestial pain and fear, only to find that they never came? Did the land yearn for the tremble of thousands of hoofs and the padded feet of tenag? Did it hunger for that flood of nutrients to feed its children? Or was the silence it found a blessed peace to its tortured skin?
There had been seasons when the herds came late. And then, with greater frequency, seasons when the herds did not come at all. And the Imass went hungry. Starved, forced into new lands in a desperate search for food.
The Ritual of Tellann had circumvented the natural, inevitable demise of the Imass. Had eluded the rightful consequences of their profligacy, their shortsightedness.
He wondered if, among the uppermost level of bones, one might find, here and there, the scattered skeletons of Imass. A handful that had come to this place to see what could be salvaged from the previous year’s hunt, down beneath the picked carcasses-a few desiccated strips of meat and hide, the tacky gel of hoofs. Did they kneel in helpless confusion? Did the hollow in their bellies call out to the hollow wind outside, joined in the truth that the two empty silences belonged to one another?
If not for Tellann, the Imass would have known regret-not as a ghost memory-but as a cruel hunter tracking them down to their very last, staggering steps. And that, Tool told himself, would have been just.
‘Vultures in the sky,’ said the Barghast warrior at his side.
Tool grimaced. ‘Yes, Bakal, we are close.’
‘It is as you have said, then. Barghast have died.’ The Senan paused, and then said, ‘yet our shouldermen sensed nothing. You are not of our blood. How did you know, Onos Toolan?’
The suspicion never went away, Tool reflected. This gauging, uneasy regard of the foreigner who would lead the mighty White Faces to what all believed was a righteous, indeed a holy war. ‘This is a place of endings, Bakal. Yet, if you know where to look-if you know how to see-you find that some endings never end. The very absence howls like a wounded beast.’
Bakal uttered a sceptical grunt, and then said, ‘Every death-cry finds a place to die, until only silence waits beyond. You speak of echoes that cannot be.’
‘And you speak with the conviction of a deaf man insisting that what you do not hear does not exist-in such thinking you will find yourself besieged, Bakal.’ He finally faced the Barghast warrior. ‘When will you people discover that your will does not rule the world?’
‘I ask how you knew,’ Bakal said, expression darkening, ‘and you answer with insults?’
‘It is curious what you choose to take offence to,’ Tool replied.
‘It is your cowardice that offends us, Warleader.’
‘I refuse your challenge, Bakal. As I did that of Riggis, and as I will all others that come my way-until our return to our camp.’
‘And once there? A hundred warriors shall vie to be first to spill your blood. A thousand. Do you imagine you can withstand them all?’
Tool was silent for a moment. ‘Bakal, have you seen me fight?’
The warrior bared his filed teeth. ‘None of us have. Again you evade my questions!’
Behind them, close to a hundred disgruntled Senan warriors listened to their every word. But Tool would not face them. He found he could not look away from the sinkhole. I could have drawn my sword. With shouts and fierce faces, enough to terrify them all. And I could have driven them before me, chased them, shrieking at seeing them run, seeing their direction shift, as the ancient rows of cairns channelled them unwittingly on to the proper path-
– and then see them tumble over the cliff’s edge. Cries of fear, screams of pain-the snap of bones, the thunder of crushed bodies-oh, listen to the echoes of all that!
‘I have a question for you, Bakal.’
‘Ah! Yes, ask it and hear how a Barghast answers what is asked of him!’
‘Can the Senan afford to lose a thousand warriors?’
Bakal snorted.
‘Can the Warleader of the White Face Barghast justify killing a thousand of his own warriors? Just to make a point?’
‘You will not survive one, never mind a thousand!’
Tool nodded. ‘See how difficult it is, Bakal, to answer questions?’
He set out, skirting the sinkhole’s edge, and made his way down the slope to the left-a much gentler descent into the valley, and had the beasts been clever, they would have used it. But fear drove them on, and on. Blinding them, deafening them. Fear led them to the cliff’s edge. Fear chased them into death.
Look on, my warriors, and see me run.
But it is not you that I fear. A detail without relevance, because, you see, the cliff edge does not care.
‘Which damned tribe is this one?’ Sceptre Irkullas asked.
The scout frowned. ‘The traders call them the Nith’rithal-the blue streaks in their white face paint distinguish them.’
The Akrynnai warleader twisted to ease the muscles of his lower back. He had thought such days were past him-a damned war! Had he not seen enough to earn some respite? When all he sought was a quiet life in his clan, playing bear to his grandchildren, growling as they swarmed all over him with squeals and leather knives stabbing everywhere they could reach. He so enjoyed his lengthy death-throes, always saving one last shocking lunge when all were convinced the giant bear was well and truly dead. They’d shriek and scatter and he would lie back, laughing until he struggled to catch his breath.
By the host of spirits, he had earned peace. Instead, he had… this. ‘How many yurts did you say again?’ His memory leaked like a worm-holed bladder these days.
‘Six, maybe seven thousand, Sceptre.’
Irkullas grunted. ‘No wonder they’ve devoured half that bhederin herd in the month since they corralled them.’ He considered for a time, scratching the white bristles on his chin. ‘Twenty thousand inhabitants then. Would you say that a fair count?’
‘There’s the track of a large war-party that headed out-eastward-a day or so ago.’
‘Thus diminishing the number of combatants even more-tracks, you say? These Barghast have grown careless, then.’
‘Arrogant, Sceptre-after all, they’ve slaughtered hundreds of Akrynnai already-’
‘Poorly armed and ill-guarded merchants! And that makes them strut? Well, this time they shall face true warriors of the Akrynnai-descendants of warriors who crushed invaders from Awl, Lether and D’rhasilhani!’ He collected his reins and twisted round towards his second in command. ‘Gavat! Prepare the wings to the canter-as soon as their pickets see us, sound the Gathering. Upon sighting the encampment, we charge.’
There were enough warriors nearby to hear his commands and a low, ominous hhunn chant rumbled through the ranks.
Irkullas squinted at the scout. ‘Ride back out to your wing, Ildas-ride down their pickets if you can.’
‘It’s said the Barghast women are as dangerous as the men.’
‘No doubt. We kill every adult and every youth near blooding-the children we will make Akrynnai and those who resist we will sell as slaves to the Bolkando. Now, enough talking-loosen the arrows in your quiver, Ildas-we have kin to avenge!’
Sceptre Irkullas liked playing the bear to his grandchildren. He was well suited to the role. Stubborn, slow to anger, but as the Letherii and others had discovered, ware the flash of red in his eyes-he had led the warriors of the Akrynnai for three decades, at the head of the most-feared cavalry on the plains, and not once had he been defeated.
A commander needed more than ferocity, of course. A dozen dead Letherii generals had made the mistake of underestimating the Sceptre’s cunning.
The Barghast had lashed out to slay traders and drovers. Irkullas was not interested in chasing the damned raiding parties this way and that-not yet, in any case. No, he would strike at the very homes of these White Face Barghast-and leave in his wake nothing but bones and ashes.
Twenty thousand. Seven to ten thousand combatants is probably a high estimate-although it’s said they’ve few old and lame, for their journey into these lands was evidently a hard one.
These Barghast were formidable warriors; of that Irkullas had no doubt. But they thought like thieves and rapists, with the belligerence and arrogance of bullies. Eager for war, were they? Then Sceptre Irkullas shall bring them war.
Formidable warriors, yes, these White Faces.
He wondered how long they would last.
Kamz’tryld despised picket duty. Tripping over bhederin dung-and more than a few bones of late, as the slaughter to ready for winter had begun-while biting flies chased him about and the wind drove grit and sand into his face so that by day’s end his white deathmask was somewhere between grey and brown. Besides, he was not so old that he could not have trotted out with Talt’s war-party yesterday-not that Talt agreed, the one-fanged bastard.
Kamz was reaching an age when loot became less a luxury than a need. He had a legacy to build, something to leave his kin-he should not be wasting his last years of prowess here, so far from-
Thunder?
No. Horses.
He was on a ridge that faced a yet higher one just to the north-he probably should have walked out to that one, but he’d decided it was too far-and as he turned to squint in that direction he caught sight of the first outriders.
Akrynnai. A raid-ah, we shall have plenty of blood to spill after all! He snapped out a command and his three wardogs spun and bolted for the camp. Kamz voiced a cry and saw that his fellow sentinels, two off to his left, three to his right, had all seen and heard the enemy, and dogs were tearing down towards the camp-where he discerned a sudden flurry of activity-
Yes, these Akrynnai had made a terrible mistake.
He shifted grip on his lance, as he saw one of the riders charging directly for him. A fine horse: it would make his first trophy of this day.
And then, along the ridge behind the first scatter of riders, a mass of peaked helms-a blinding glare rising like the crest of an iron wave, and then the flash of scaled armour-
Kamz involuntarily stepped back, the rider closing on him forgotten in his shock.
He was a seasoned warrior. He could gauge numbers in an instant, and he counted as he watched the ranks roll down the slope. Spirits below! Twenty-no, thirty thousand-and still more! I need to-
The first arrow took him high between his neck and right shoulder. Staggered by the blow, he recovered and looked up only to greet the second arrow, tearing like fire into his throat.
As blood spurted down his chest, the biting flies rushed in.
Warleader Talt probed with his tongue his single remaining upper canine and then glared at the distant horse-warriors. ‘They lead us ever on, and not once do they turn and fight! We are in a land of cowards!’
‘So we must scrape it clean,’ said Bedit in a growl.
Talt nodded. ‘Your words ring like swords on shields, old friend. These Akrynnai start and dance away like antelope, but their villages are not so fleet, are they? When we are killing their children and raping their young ones, when we are burning their huts and slaughtering their puny horses, then they will fight us!’
‘Or run in terror, Warleader. Torture kills them quick-we’ve seen that. They are spineless.’ He pointed with the tip of his spear. ‘We must choose our own path here, I think, for it is likely they seek to lead us away from their village.’
Talt studied the distant riders. No more than thirty-they had spied them at dawn, waiting, it seemed, on a distant rise. Talt had half-exhausted his warriors attempting to chase them down. A few scattered arrows sent their way was the extent of their belligerence. It was pathetic. The warleader glanced back at his warriors. Eight hundred men and women, their white paint streaked now with sweat, most of them sitting, hunched over in the heat. ‘We shall rest for a time,’ he said.
‘I shall remain here,’ Bedit said, lowering himself into a crouch.
‘If they move sound the call.’
‘Yes, Warleader.’
Talt hesitated, turning to squint at a mountainous mass of storm clouds to the southwest. Closer, yes.
Bedit must have followed his gaze. ‘We are in its path. It will do much to cool us down, I think.’
‘Be sure to leave this hilltop before it arrives,’ Talt advised. ‘And hold that spear to the ground.’
Nodding, Bedit grinned and tapped the side of his bone and horn helm. ‘Tell the fools below who are wearing iron peaks.’
‘I will, although it’s the Akrynnai who should be worried.’
Bedit barked a laugh.
Talt turned and trotted back down to his warriors.
Inthalas, third daughter of Sceptre Irkullas, leaned forward on her saddle.
Beside her, Sagant shook himself and said, ‘They’re done, I think.’
She nodded, but somewhat distractedly. She had lived her entire life on these plains. She had weathered the fiercest prairie storms-she recalled, once, seeing a hundred dead bhederin on a slope, each one killed by lightning-but she had never before seen clouds like these ones.
Her horse was trembling beneath her.
Sagant gusted out a breath. ‘We have time, I think, if we strike now. Get it over with quickly and then try to outride the storm.’
After a moment, Inthalas nodded.
Sagant laughed and swung his horse round, leaving the small troop of outriders to ride down to where waited-unseen by any Barghast-three wings of Akrynnai horse-archers and lancers, along with nine hundred armoured, axe-wielding shock troops: in all, almost three thousand warriors. As he drew closer, he gestured with his free hand, saw with pleasure the alacrity with which his troops responded.
The Sceptre’s great success had been founded, in part, on the clever adoption of the better qualities of the Letherii military-foot-soldiers capable of maintaining tight, disciplined ranks, for one, and an adherence to a doctrine of formations, as well as dictating the field of battle in situations of their own choosing.
Leading the Barghast ever onward, until they were exhausted-leading them straight to their waiting heavy infantry, to a battle in which the White Faces could not hope to triumph-Inthalas had learned well from her father.
This would be a fine day of slaughter. He laughed again.
Inthalas had done her part. Now it was time for Sagant. They would finish with these Barghast quickly-she glanced again at the storm-front-yes, it would have to be quickly. The blackened bellies of those clouds seemed to be scraping the ground, reminding her of smoke-but she could not smell anything like a grass fire-no, this was uncanny, troubling. Still a league or more distant, but fast closing.
She shook herself, faced her fellow outriders. ‘We will ride to find a better vantage point once the battle is engaged-and should any Barghast break free, I give you leave to chase them down. You have done well-the fools are spent, unsuspecting, and even now the great village they left behind is likely burning to the Sceptre’s touch.’
At that she saw cold smiles.
‘Perhaps,’ she added, ‘we can capture a few here, and visit upon them the horrors they so callously delivered upon our innocent kin.’
This pleased them even more.
Bedit had watched one of the riders disappear down the other side of the ridge, and this struck him with a faint unease. What reason for that, except to join another troop-hidden in the hollow beyond? Then again, it might be that the entire village waited there, crowded with hundreds of terrified fools.
He slowly straightened-and then felt the first rumble beneath his feet.
Bedit turned to face the storm, and his eyes widened. The enormous, swollen clouds were suddenly churning, lifting. Walls of dust or rain spanned the distance between them and the ground, but not-as one would expect-a single front; rather, countless walls, shifting like curtains in a broken row of bizarre angles-and he could now see something like white foam tumbling out from the base of those walls.
Hail.
But if that was true, then those hailstones must be the size of fists-even larger-else he would not be able to see anything of them at this distance. The drumming beneath him shook the entire hill. He shot the Akrynnai a glance and saw them riding straight for him.
Beneath hail and lightning then! He tilted his head back and shrieked his warning to Talt and the others, then collected up his spear and ran down to join them.
He had just reached the ranks when Akrynnai horse-warriors appeared behind the Barghast, and then on both sides, reining up and closing at the ends to form a three-sided encirclement. Cursing, Bedit spun to face the hill he had just descended. The scouts were there, but well off to one side, and as he stared-half-hearing the shouts of dismay from his fellow warriors through the tumult of thunder-he saw the first ranks of foot-soldiers appear above the crest. Rectangular shields, spiked axes, iron helms with visors and nose-guards, presenting a solid line advancing in step. Rank after rank topped the rise.
We have the battle we so lusted after. But it shall be our last battle. He howled his defiance, and at his side-stunned, appalled, young Talt visibly flinched at Bedit’s cry.
Then Talt straightened, drawing his sword. ‘We shall show them how true warriors fight!’ He pointed at the closing foot-soldiers. ‘Nith’rithal! Charge!’
Inthalas gasped, eyes widening. The Barghast were rushing the foot-soldiers in a ragged mass, uphill. True, they were bigger, but against that disciplined line they would meet nothing but an iron wall and descending axe blades.
She expected them to break, reel back-and the Akrynnai ranks would then advance, pressing the savages until they routed-and as they fled, the cavalry would sweep in from the flanks, arrows sleeting, while at the far end of the basin the lancers would level their weapons and then roll down in a charge into the very face of those fleeing Barghast.
No one would escape.
Thunder, flashes of lightning, a terrible growing roar-yet her eyes held frozen on the charging Barghast.
They hammered into the Akryn ranks, and Inthalas shouted in shock as the first line seemed to simply vanish beneath a crazed flurry of huge Barghast warriors, swords slashing down. Shield edges crumpled. Fragments of shattered helms spat into the air. The three front rows were driven back by the concussion. The chop and clash rose amidst screams of pain and rage, and she saw the Akryn legion bow inward as the remainder of the Barghast pushed their own front ranks ever deeper into the formation. It was moments from being driven apart, split in half.
Sagant must have seen the same from where he waited with the lancers. In actual numbers, the Barghast almost matched the foot-soldiers, and their ferocity was appalling. Darkness was swallowing the day, and the flashes of lightning from the west provided moments of frozen clarity as the battle was joined now on all sides-arrows lashing into the Barghast flanks in wave after wave. The plunging descent of Sagant and his lancers closed fast on the rearmost enemy warriors-who seemed indifferent to the threat at their backs as they pushed their comrades in front of them, clawing forward in a frenzy.
But that made sense-carve apart the Akryn legion and a way would be suddenly open before the Barghast, and in the ensuing chaos of the breakout the lancers would end up snarled with the foot-soldiers, and the archers would hunt uselessly in the gloom to make out foe from friend. All order, and with it command, would be lost.
She stared, still half-disbelieving, as the legion buckled. The Barghast had now formed a wedge, and it drove ever deeper.
Should the enemy push through and come clear, momentarily uncontested, they could wheel round and set weapons-they could even counter-attack, slaughtering disordered foot-soldiers and tangled lancers.
Inthalas turned to her thirty-odd scouts. ‘Ride with me!’ And she led them down the back slope of the ridge, cantering and then galloping, to bring her troop round opposite the likely fissure in the legion.
‘When the Barghast fight clear-we charge, do you understand? Arrows and then sabres-into the tip of the wedge. We tumble them, we slow them, we bind them-if with our own dead horses and our own dying bodies, we bind them!’
She could see a third of a wing of horse-archers pulling clear to the east-they were responding to the threat, but they might not be ready in time.
Damn these barbarians!
Inthalas, third daughter of the Sceptre, rose on her stirrups, gaze fixed on the writhing ranks of the legion. My children, your mother will not be returning home. Never again to see your faces. Never-
A sudden impact sent the horses staggering. The ground erupted-and she saw figures wheeling through the air, flung to one side as the storm struck the flank of the hills to the west, struck and tumbled over those hills, swallowing them whole. Inthalas, struggling to stay on her mount, stared in horror as a seething crest of enormous boulders and jagged rocks lifted over the nearest ridge-
Something huge and solid loomed within the nearest cloud-towering to fill half the sky. And its base was carving a bow-wave before it, as if tearing up the earth itself. The avalanche poured over the crest and down the slope of the basin in a roaring wave.
An entire wing of horse-archers was simply engulfed beneath the onslaught, and then the first of the broken boulders-many bigger than a trader’s wagon-crashed into the milling mass of Barghast and Akryn. As the rocks rolled and bounced through the press, pieces of crushed, smeared bodies spun into the air.
At that moment the lightning struck. Lashing, actinic blades ripping out from the dark, heaving cloud, cutting blackened paths through Sagant’s lancers and the clumps of reeling foot-soldiers. The air was filled with burning fragments-bodies lit like torches-men, women, horses-lightning danced from iron to iron in a crazed, terrifying web of charred destruction. Flesh burst in explosions of boiling fluid. Hair ignited like rushes-
Someone was shrieking in her ear. Inthalas turned, and then gestured-they had to get away. Away from the storm, away from the slaughter-they had to-
Deafening white light. Agony, and then-
As if a god’s sword had slashed across the hills on the other side of the valley, not a single ridge remained. Something vast and inexorable had pushed those summits down into the valley, burying the Snakehunter camp in a mass of deadly rubble. Here and there, Tool could see, remnants were visible among the shattered boulders-torn sections of canvas and hide, snarled shreds of clothing, guy-rope fetishes and feather-bundles, splintered shafts of ridge-poles-and there had been mangled flesh once, too, although now only bleached bones remained, broken, crushed, jutting-yet worse, to Tool’s mind, was the black hair, torn loose from flaps of scalp by the beaks of crows, and now wind-blown over the entire slope before them.
Riggis had shouldered aside a speechless Bakal and now glared down into that nightmarish scene. After a moment he shook his huge frame and spat. ‘This is our enemy, Warleader? Bah! An earthquake! Shall we war against the rocks and soil, then? Stab the hills? Bleed the rivers? You have led us to this? Hoping for what? That we beg you to take us away from an angry earth?’ He drew his tulwar. ‘Enough wasting our time. Face me, Onos T’oolan-I challenge your right to lead the White Face Barghast!’
Tool sighed. ‘Use your eyes, Riggis. What shifting of the earth leaves no cracks? Pushes to one side hilltops without touching their roots? Drives three-possibly more-furrows across the plain, each one converging on this valley, each one striking for the heart of the Snakehunter camp?’ He pointed to the north channel of the valley. ‘What earthquake cuts down fleeing Barghast in the hundreds? See them, Riggis-that road of bones?’
‘Akryn raiders, taking advantage of the broken state of the survivors. Answer my challenge, coward!’
Tool studied the enormous warrior. Not yet thirty, his belt crowded with trophies. He turned to the others and raised his voice, ‘Do any of you challenge Riggis and his desire to be Warleader of the White Face Barghast?’
‘He is not yet Warleader,’ growled Bakal.
Tool nodded. ‘And should I kill Riggis here, now, will you draw your weapon and voice your challenge to me, Bakal?’ He scanned the others. ‘How many of you will seek the same? Shall we stand here over the broken graveyard of the Snakehunter clan and spill yet more Barghast blood? Is this how you will honour your fallen White Faces?’
‘They will not follow you,’ Riggis said, his eyes bright. ‘Unless you answer my challenge.’
‘Ah, and so, if I do answer you, Riggis, they will then follow me?’
The Senan warrior’s laugh was derisive. ‘I am not yet ready to speak for them-’
‘You just did.’
‘Spar no more with empty words, Onos Toolan.’ He widened his stance and readied his heavy-bladed weapon, teeth gleaming amidst his braided beard.
‘Were you Warleader, Riggis,’ Tool said, still standing relaxed, hands at his sides, ‘would you slay your best warriors simply to prove your right to rule?’
‘Any who dared oppose me, yes!’
‘Then, you would command out of a lust for power, not out of a duty to your people.’
‘My finest warriors,’ Riggis replied, ‘would find no cause to challenge me in the first place.’
‘They would, as soon as they decided to disagree with you, Riggis. And this would haunt you, in the back of your mind. With every decision you made, you would find yourself weighing the risks, and before long you would gather to yourself an entourage of cohorts-the ones whose loyalty you have purchased with favours-and you would sit like a spider in the centre of your web, starting at every tremble of the silk. How well can you trust your friends, knowing how you yourself bought them? How soon before you find yourself swaying to every gust of desire among your people? Suddenly, that power you so hungered for proves to be a prison. You seek to please everyone and so please no one. You search the eyes of those closest to you, wondering if you can trust them, wondering if their smiles are but lying masks, wondering what they say behind your back-’
‘Enough!’ Riggis roared, and then charged.
The flint sword appeared as if conjured in Tool’s hands. It seemed to flicker.
Riggis staggered to one side, down on to one knee. His broken tulwar thumped to the ground four paces away, the warrior’s hand still wrapped tight about the grip. He blinked down at his own chest, as if looking for something, and blood ran from the stump of his wrist-ran, but the flow was ebbing. With his remaining hand he reached up to touch an elongated slit in his boiled-leather hauberk, from which the faint glisten of blood slowly welled. A slit directly above his heart.
He looked up at Tool, perplexed, and then sat back.
A moment later, Riggis fell on to his side, and no further movement came from him.
Tool faced Bakal. ‘Do you seek to be Warleader, Bakal? If so, you can have it. I yield command of the White Face Barghast. To you’-he turned to the others-‘to any of you. I will be the coward you want me to be. For what now comes, someone else shall be responsible-not me, not any more. In my last words as Warleader, I say this: gather the White Face Barghast, gather all the clans, and march to the Lether Empire. Seek sanctuary. A deadly enemy has returned to these plains, an ancient enemy. You are in a war you cannot win. Leave this land and save your people. Or remain, and the White Faces shall all die.’ He ran the tip of his sword through a tuft of grass, and then slung it back into the sheath beneath his left arm. ‘A worthy warrior lies dead. The Senan has suffered a loss this day. The fault is mine. Now, Bakal, you and the others can squabble over the prize, and those who fall shall not have me to blame.’
‘I do not challenge you, Onos Toolan,’ said Bakal, licking dry lips.
Tool flinched.
In the silence following that, not one of the other warriors spoke.
Damn you, Bakal. I was almost… free.
Bakal spoke again, ‘Warleader, I suggest we examine the dead at the end of the valley, to determine what manner of weapon cut them down.’
‘I will lead the Barghast from this plain,’ Tool said.
‘Clans will break away, Warleader.’
‘They already are doing so.’
‘You will have only the Senan.’
‘I will?’
Bakal shrugged. ‘There is no value in you killing a thousand Senan warriors. There is no value in challenging you-I have never seen a blade sing so fast. We shall be furious with you, but we shall follow.’
‘Even if I am a leader with no favours to grant, Bakal, no loyalty I would purchase from any of you?’
‘Perhaps that has been true, Onos Toolan. In that, you have been… fair. But it need not remain so… empty. Please, you must tell us what you know of this enemy-who slays with rocks and dirt. We are not fools who will blindly oppose what we cannot hope to defeat-’
‘What of the prophecies, Bakal?’ Tool then smiled wryly at the warrior’s scowl.
‘Ever open to interpretation, Warleader. Will you speak to us now?’
Tool gestured at the valley below. ‘Is this not eloquent enough?’
‘Buy our loyalty with the truth, Onos Toolan. Gift us all with an even measure.’ Yes, this is how one leads. Anything else is suspect. Every other road proves a maze of deceit and cynicism. After a moment, he nodded. ‘Let us look upon the fallen Snakehunters.’
The sun was low on the horizon when the two scouts were brought into Maral Eb’s presence where he sat beside a dung fire over which skewers of horse meat sizzled. The scouts were both young and he did not know their names, but the excitement he observed in their faces awakened his attention. He pointed to one. ‘You shall speak, and quickly now-I am about to eat.’
‘A Senan war-party,’ the scout said.
‘Where?’
‘We were the ones backtracking the Snakehunters’ trail, Warchief. They are camped in a hollow not a league from here.’
‘How many?’
‘A hundred, no more than that. But, Warchief, there is something else-’
‘Out with it!’
‘Onos Toolan is with them.’
Maral Eb straightened. ‘Are you certain? Escorted by a mere hundred? The fool!’
His two younger brothers came running at his words and Maral Eb grinned at them. ‘Stir the warriors-we eat on the march.’
‘Are you sure of this, Maral?’ his youngest brother asked.
‘We strike,’ the warchief snarled. ‘In darkness. We kill them all. But be certain every warrior understands-no one is to slay Tool. Wound him, yes, but not unto death-if anyone gets careless I will have him or her skinned alive and roasted over a fire. Now, quickly-the gods smile down upon us!’
The Barahn warchief led his four thousand warriors across the rolling plains at a ground-devouring trot. One of the two scouts padded twenty paces directly ahead, keeping them to the trail, whilst others ranged further out on the flanks. The moon had yet to rise, and even when it did, it would be weak, shrouded in perpetual haze-these nights, the brightest illumination came from the jade streaks to the south, and that was barely enough to cast shadows.
The perfect setting for an ambush. None of the other tribes would ever know the truth-after all, with Tool and a hundred no doubt elite warriors dead the Senan would be crippled, and the Barahn Clan would achieve swift ascendancy once Maral Eb attained the status of Warleader over all the White Face Barghast. And was it not in every Barahn warrior’s interest to hide the truth? The situation was ideal.
Weapons and armour were bound, muffled against inadvertent noise, and the army moved in near silence. Before long, the lead scout hurried back to the main column. Maral Eb gestured and his warriors halted behind him.
‘The hollow is two hundred paces ahead, Warchief. Fires are lit. There will be pickets-’
‘Don’t tell me my business,’ Maral Eb growled. He drew his brothers closer. ‘Sagal, take your Skullsplitters north. Kashat, you lead your thousand south. Stay a hundred paces back from the pickets, low to the ground, and form into a six-deep crescent. There is no way we can kill those sentinels silently, so the surprise will not be absolute, but we have overwhelming numbers, so that will not matter. I will lead my two thousand straight in. When you hear my war-cry, brothers, rise and close. No one must escape, so leave a half hundred spread wide in your wake. It may be we will drive them west for a time, so be sure to be ready to wheel your crescents to close that route.’ He paused. ‘Listen well to this. Tonight, we break the most sacred law of the White Faces-but necessity forces our hand. Onos Toolan has betrayed the Barghast. He dishonours us. I hereby pledge to reunite the clans, to lead us to glory.’
The faces arrayed before him were sober, but he could see the gleam in their eyes. They were with him. ‘This night shall stain our souls black, my brothers, but we will spend the rest of our lives cleansing them. Now, go!’
Onos Toolan sat beside the dying fire. The camp was quiet, as his words of truth now sank into hearts like the flames, flaring and winking out.
The stretch of ages could humble the greatest of peoples, once all the self-delusions were stripped away. Pride had its place, but not at the expense of sober truth. Even back on Genabackis, the White Faces had strutted about as if unaware that their culture was drawing to an end; that they had been pushed into inhospitable lands; that farms and then cities rose upon ground they once held to be sacred, or rightly theirs as hunting grounds or pasture lands. All around them, the future showed faces ghastlier and more deadly than anything white paint could achieve-when Humbrall Taur had led them here, to this continent, he had done so in fullest comprehension of the extinction awaiting his Barghast should they remain on Genabackis, besieged by progress.
Prophecies never touched on such matters. By nature, they were proclamations of egotism, rife with pride and bold fates. Humbrall Taur had, however, managed a clever twist or two in making use of them.
Too bad he is gone-I would rather have stood at his side than in his place. I would rather-
Tool’s breath caught and he lifted his head. He reached out and settled one hand down on the packed earth, and then slowly closed his eyes. Ah, Hetan… my children… forgive me.
The Imass rose, turned to the nearest other fire. ‘Bakal.’
The warrior looked over. ‘Warleader?’
‘Draw your dagger, Bakal, and come to me.’
The warrior did not move for a moment, and then he rose, sliding the gutting knife from its scabbard. He walked over, cautious, uncertain.
My warriors… enough blood has been shed. ‘Drive the knife deep, directly under my heart. When I fall, begin shouting these words-as loud as you can. Shout “Tool is dead! Onos Toolan lies slain! Our Warleader lies dead!” Do you understand me, Bakal?’
The warrior, eyes wide, slowly backed away. Others had caught the words and were now rising, converging.
Tool closed on Bakal once again. ‘Be quick, Bakal-if you value your life and the lives of every one of your kin here. You must slay me-now!’
‘Warleader! I will not-’
Tool’s hands snapped out, closed on Bakal’s right hand and wrist.
The warrior gasped, struggled to tug free, but against Tool’s strength, he was helpless. The Imass pulled him close. ‘Remember-shout out my death, it is your only hope-’
Bakal sought to loosen his grip on his knife, but Tool’s huge, spatulate hand wrapped his own as would an adult’s a child’s. The other, closed round his wrist, dragged him inexorably forward.
The blade’s tip touched Tool’s leather armour.
Whimpering, Bakal sought to throw himself backward-but the imprisoned arm did not move. He tried to drop to his knees, and his elbow dislocated with a pop. He howled in pain.
The other warriors-who had stood frozen-suddenly rushed in.
But Tool gave them no time. He drove the dagger into his chest.
Sudden, blinding pain. Releasing Bakal’s wrist, he staggered back, stared down at the knife buried to its hilt in his chest.
Hetan, my love, forgive me.
There was shouting all round him now-horror, terrible confusion, and then, on his knees, Bakal lifted his head and met Tool’s gaze.
The Imass had lost his voice, but he sought to implore the man with his eyes. Shout out my death! Spirits take me-shout it out loud! He stumbled, lost his footing, and fell heavily on to his back.
Death-he had forgotten its bitter kiss. So long… so long.
But I knew a gift. I tasted the air in my lungs… after so long… after ages of dust. The sweet air of love… but now…
Night-stained faces crowded above him, paint white as bone.
Skulls? Ah, my brothers… we are dust-
Dust, and nothing but-
He could hear shouting, alarms rising from the Senan encampment. Cursing, Maral Eb straightened, saw the sentinels clearly now-all running back into the camp.
‘Damn the gods! We must charge-’
‘Listen!’ cried the scout. ‘Warchief-listen to the words!’
‘What?’
And then he did. His eyes slowly widened. Could it be true? Have the Senan taken matters into their own hands?
Of course they have! They are Barghast! White Faces! He raised his sword high in the air. ‘Barahn!’ he roared. ‘Hear the words of your warchief! Sheathe your weapons! The betrayer is slain! Onos Toolan is slain! Let us go down to meet our brothers!’
Voices howled in answer.
They will have someone to set forward-they will not relinquish dominance so easily-I might well draw blood this night after all. But none will stand long before me. I am Maral Eb, slayer of hundreds.
The way lies open.
It lies open.
The Barahn warchief led his warriors down into the hollow.
To claim his prize.
Hetan woke in the night. She stared upward, eyes wide but unseeing, until they filled with tears. The air in the yurt was stale, darkness heavy and suffocating as a shroud. My husband, I dreamed the flight of your soul… I dreamed its brush upon my lips. A moment, only a moment, and then it was as if a vast wind swept you away.
I heard your cry, husband.
Oh, such a cruel dream, beloved.
And now… I smell dust in the air. Rotted furs. The dry taste of ancient death.
Her heart pounded like a mourner’s drum in her chest, loud, heavy, the beat stretching with each deep breath she took. That taste, that smell. She reached up to touch her own lips. And felt something like grit upon them.
O beloved, what has happened?
What has happened-
To my husband-to the father of my children-what has happened?
She let out a ragged sigh, forcing out the unseemly fear. Such a cruel dream.
From the outer room, the dog whined softly, and a moment later their son suddenly sobbed, and then bawled.
And she knew the truth. Such a cruel truth.
Ralata crouched in the high grasses and studied the figures gathered round the distant fire. None had stirred in the time she had been watching. But the horses were tugging at their stakes and even from here she could smell their terror-and she did not understand, for she could see nothing-no threat in any direction.
Even so, it was strange that none of her sisters had awakened. In fact, they did not move at all.
Her confusion was replaced by unease. Something was wrong.
She glanced back at the hollow where waited her horse. The animal seemed calm enough. Collecting her weapons, Ralata rose and padded forward.
Hessanrala might be a headstrong young fool, but she knew her trade as well as any Ahkrata warrior-she should be on her feet by now, drawing the others in with silent hand gestures-was it just a snake slithering among the horses’ hoofs? A scent on the wind?
No, something was very wrong.
As she drew within ten paces, she could smell bile, spilled wastes, and blood. Mouth dry, Ralata crept closer. They were dead. She knew that now. She had failed to protect them-but how? What manner of slayer could creep up on five Barghast warriors? As soon as night had fallen, she had drawn near enough to watch them preparing camp. She had watched them rub down the horses; had watched them eat and drink beer from Hessanrala’s skin. They had set no watch among themselves, clearly relying upon the horses should danger draw near. But Ralata had remained wakeful, had even seen when the horses first wakened to alarm.
Beneath the stench of death there was something else, an oily bitterness reminding her of serpents. She studied the movements of the Akryn mounts-no, they were not shying from any snake in the grasses. Heads tossed, ears cocking in one direction after another, eyes rolling.
Ralata edged towards the firelight. Once lit, dried dung burned hot but not bright, quick to sink into bricks of pulsating ashes; in the low, lurid reflection, she could see fresh blood, glistening meat from split corpses.
No quick knife thrusts here. No, these were the wounds delivered by the talons of a huge beast. Bear? Barbed cat? If so, why not drag at least one body away… to feed upon? Why ignore the horses? And how was it that Ralata had seen nothing; that not one of her kin had managed to utter a death-cry?
Gutted, throat-slit, chests ripped open-she saw the stubs of ribs cut clean through. Talons sharp as swords-or swords in truth? All at once she recalled, years ago, on the distant continent they had once called home, visions of giant undead, two-legged lizards. K’Chain Che’Malle, arrayed in silent ranks in front of the city called Coral. Swords at the end of their wrists instead of hands-but no, the wounds she looked upon here were different. What then had triggered that memory?
Ralata slowly inhaled once more, deeply, steadily, running the acrid flavours through her. Yes, the smell. Although, long ago, it was more… stale, rank with death.
But the kiss upon the tongue-it is the same.
The horses ducked and fanned out, heads snapping back as they reached the ends of their tethers. A faint downdraught of wind-the whish of wings-
Ralata threw herself flat, rolled, making for the legs of the horses-anything to put between her and whatever hovered above.
Thuds in the air, leathery hissing-she stared up into the night, caught a vast winged silhouette that devoured a sweep of stars. A flash, and then it was gone.
Hoofs kicked at her, and then settled.
She heard laughter in her head-not her own, something cold, contemptuous, fading now into some inner distance, until even the echoes were gone.
Ralata rose to her feet. The thing had flown northeastward. Of course, there could be no tracking such a creature, but at least she had a direction.
She had failed to protect her kin. Perhaps, however, she could avenge them.
The Wastelands were well named, but Torrent had always known that. He had last found water two days past, and the skins strapped to his saddle would suffice him no more than another day. Travelling at night was the only option, now that the full heat of summer had arrived, but his horse was growing gaunt, and all that he could see before them beneath dull moonlight was a vast, flat stretch of sunbaked clay and shards of broken stone.
The first night following the gate and his parting ways with Cafal and Setoc, he had come upon a ruined tower, ragged as a rotten fang, the walls of which seemed to have melted under enormous heat. The destruction was so thorough not a single window or dressed facing survived, and much of the structure’s skeleton was visible as sagging latticework snarled with twisted ropes of rusting metal wire. He had never before seen anything remotely like it, and superstitious fear kept him from riding closer.
Since then, Torrent had seen nothing of interest, nothing to break the monotony of the blasted landscape. No mounds, no hills, not even ancient remnants of myrid, rodara and goat pens, as one often found on the Awl’dan.
It was nearing dawn when he made out a humped shape ahead, directly in his path, barely rising above the cracked rock. The ripple of furs-a torn, frayed hide riding hunched, narrow shoulders. Thin, grey hair seeming to float up from the head in the faint, sighing wind. A girdled skirt of rotted strips of snakeskin flared out from the seated form. He drew closer. The figure’s back was to Torrent, and beyond the wind-tugged hair and accoutrements, it remained motionless as he walked his horse up and halted five paces behind it.
A corpse? From the weathered pate beneath the sparse hair, it was likely. But who would have simply left one of their own out on this lifeless pan?
When the figure spoke, Torrent’s horse started back, nostrils flaring. ‘The fool. I needed him.’
The voice was rough as sand, hollow as a wind-sculpted cave. He could not tell if it belonged to a man or a woman.
It uttered something between a sigh and a hissing snarl, and then asked, ‘What am I to do now?’
The Awl warrior hesitated, and then said, ‘You speak the language of my people. Are you Awl? No, you cannot be. I am the last-and what you wear-’
‘You have no answer, then. I am used to disappointment. Indeed, surprise is an emotion I have not known for so long, I believe I have forgotten its taste. Be on your way then-this world and its needs are too vast for one such as you. He would have fared better, of course, but now he’s dead. I am so… irritated.’
Torrent dismounted, collecting one of his waterskins. ‘You must be thirsty, old one.’
‘Yes, my throat is parched, but there is nothing you can do for that.’
‘I have some water-’
‘Which you need more than I do. Still, it is a kind gesture. Foolish, but most kind gestures are.’
When he walked round to face the elder, he frowned. Much of the face was hidden in the shadow of protruding brows, but it seemed it was adorned in rough strings of beads or threads. He caught the dull gleam of teeth and a shiver whispered through him. Involuntarily he made a warding gesture with his free hand.
Rasping laughter. ‘Your spirits of wind and earth, warrior, are my children. And you imagine such fends work on me? But wait, there is this, isn’t there? The long thread of shared blood between us. I might be foolish, to think such things, but if anyone has earned the right to be a fool, it must surely be me. Thus yielding this… gesture.’
The figure rose in a clatter of bones grating in dry sockets. Torrent saw the long tubes of bare, withered breasts, the skin patched and rotted; a sagging belly cut and slashed, the edges of the wounds dry and hanging, and in the gashes themselves there was impenetrable darkness-as if this woman was as dried up inside as she was on the outside.
Torrent licked parched lips, struggled to swallow, and then spoke in a hushed tone, ‘Woman, are you dead?’
‘Life and death is such an old game. I’m too old to play. Did you know, these lips once touched those of the Son of Darkness? In our days of youth, in a world far from this one-far, yes, but little different in the end. But what value such grim lessons? We see and we do, but we know nothing.’ A desiccated hand made a fluttering gesture. ‘The fool presses a knife to his chest. He thinks it is done. He too knows nothing, because, you see, I will not let go.’
The words, confusing as they were, chilled Torrent nonetheless. The waterskin dangled in his hand, and its pathetic weight now mocked him.
The head lifted, and beneath those jutting brow ridges Torrent saw a face of dead skin stretched across prominent bones. Black pits regarded him above a permanent grin. The beaded threads he had thought he’d seen turned out to be strips of flesh-as if some clawed beast had raked talons down the old woman’s face. ‘You need water. Your horse needs fodder. Come, I will lead you and so save your useless lives. Then, if you are lucky, I will eventually find a reason to keep you alive.’
Something told Torrent that refusing her was impossible. ‘I am named Torrent,’ he said.
‘I know your name. The one-eyed Herald begged me on your behalf.’ She snorted. ‘As if I am known for mercy.’
‘The one-eyed Herald?’
‘The Dead Rider, out from Hood’s Hollow. He knows little respite of late. An omen harsh as a crow’s laugh, thus comes Toc the Younger-but do I not cherish the privacy of my dreams? He is rude.’
‘He haunts my dreams as well, Old One-’
‘Stop calling me that. It is… inaccurate. Call me by my name, and that name is Olar Ethil.’
‘Olar Ethil,’ said Torrent, ‘will he come again?’
She cocked her head, was silent a moment. ‘As they shall, to their regret, soon discover, the answer is yes.’
Sunlight spilled over a grotesque scene. Cradling his injured arm, Bakal stood with a half-dozen other Senan. Behind them, the new self-acclaimed Warleader of the White Faces, Maral Eb, was cajoling his warriors to wakefulness. The night had been long. The air smelled of spilled beer and puke. The Barahn were rising rough and loud, unwilling to relinquish their abandon.
Before Bakal and the others was the flat where their encampment had been-not a tent remained, not a single cookfire still smouldered. The Senan, silent, grim-faced, were ready to begin the march back home. A reluctant escort to the new Warleader. They sat on the ground to one side, watching the Barahn.
Flies were awakening. Crows circled overhead and would soon land to feed.
Onos Toolan’s body had been torn apart, the flesh deboned and pieces of him scattered everywhere. His bones had been systematically shattered, the fragments strewn about. His skull had been crushed. Eight Barahn warriors had tried to break the flint sword and had failed. In the end, it was pushed into a fire built from dung and Tool’s furs and clothing, and then, when everything had burned down, scores of Barahn warriors pissed on the blackened stone, seeking to shatter it. They had failed, but the desecration was complete.
Deep inside Bakal, rage seethed black and biting as acid upon his soul. Yet for all its virulence, it could not destroy the knot of guilt at the very centre of his being. He could still feel the handle of his dagger in his hand, could swear that the wire impressions remained on his palm, seared like a brand. He felt sick.
‘He has agents in our camp,’ said the warrior beside him, his voice barely a murmur. ‘Barahn women married into the Senan. And others. Stolmen’s wife, her mother. We know what Hetan’s fate will be-and Maral Eb will not permit us to travel ahead of him-he does not trust us.’
‘Nor should he, Strahl,’ replied Bakal.
‘If there were more of us and less of them.’
‘I know.’
‘Bakal, do we tell the Warleader? Of the enemy Onos Toolan described?’
‘No.’
‘Then he will lead us all to our deaths.’
Bakal glared across at the warrior. ‘Not the Senan.’ He studied the array of faces before him, gauging the effect of his words, and then nodded. ‘We must cut ourselves loose.’
‘Into the Lether Empire,’ said Strahl, ‘as Tool said. Negotiate settlement treaties, make peace with the Akrynnai.’
‘Yes.’
They fell silent again, and, inevitably, eyes turned once more to the scene before them. Their rendered Warleader, the endless signs of vicious blasphemy. This dull, discredited morning. This foul, accursed land. The crows had landed and were now hopping about, beaks darting down.
‘They will hobble her and kill the spawn,’ said Strahl, who then spat to clear the foulness of the words. ‘Yesterday, Bakal, we would have joined in. We would have each taken her. One of our own knives might well have tasted the soft throats of the children. And now, look at us. Ashes in our mouths, dust in our hearts. What has happened? What has he done to us?’
‘He showed us the burden of an honourable man, Strahl. And yes, it stings.’
‘He used you cruelly, Bakal.’
The warrior stared down at his swollen hand, and then shook his head. ‘I failed him. I did not understand.’
‘If you failed him,’ growled Strahl, ‘then we all have.’
In Bakal’s mind, there was no disputing that. ‘To think,’ he muttered, ‘we called him coward.’
Before them and behind them, the crows danced.
Some roads were easier to leave than others. Many walked to seek the future, but found only the past. Others sought the past, to make it new once more, and discovered that the past was nothing like the one they’d imagined. One could walk in search of friends, and find naught but strangers. One could yearn for company but find little but cruel solitude.
A few roads offered the gift of pilgrimage, a place to find somewhere ahead and somewhere in the heart, both to be found at the road’s end.
It was true, as well, that some roads never ended at all, and that pilgrimage could prove a flight from salvation, and all the burdens one carried one must now carry back to the place whence they came.
Drop by drop, the blood built worn stone and dirt. Drop by drop, the way of the Road to Gallan was opened. Weak, ever on the edge of fever, Yan Tovis, Queen of the Shake, commander of thousands of the dispirited and the lost, led the wretched fools ever onward. To the sides, shadows thickened to darkness, and still she walked.
Hunger assailed her people. Thirst haunted them. Livestock lowed in abject confusion, stumbled and then died. She had forgotten that this ancient path was one she had chosen to ease the journey, to slip unseen through the breadth of the Letherii Kingdom. She had forgotten that they must leave it-and now it was too late.
The road was more than a road. It was a river and its current was tightening, holding fast all that it carried, and the pace quickened, ever quickened. She could fight-they all could fight-and achieve nothing but drowning.
Drop by drop, she fed the river, and the road rushed them forward.
We are going home. Did I want this? Did I want to know all that we had abandoned? Did I want the truth, an end to the mysteries of our beginnings?
Was this a pilgrimage? A migration? Will we find salvation?
She had never even believed in such things. Sudden benediction, blessed release-these were momentary intoxications, as addictive as any drug, until one so hungered for the escape that the living, mindful world paled in comparison, bleached of all life, all wonder.
She was not a prophet. But they wanted a prophet. She was not holy. But they begged her blessing. Her path did not promise a road to glory. Yet they followed unquestioningly.
Her blood was not a river, but how it flowed!
No sense left for time. No passage of light to mark dawn, noon and dusk. Darkness all around them, before and behind, darkness breeding in swirls of stale air, the taste of ashes, the stench of charred wood and fire-cracked stone. How long? She had no idea.
But people behind her were falling. Dying.
Where is home? It lies ahead. Where is home? Lost far behind us.
Where is home? It is within, gutted and hollow, waiting to be filled once more.
Where is Gallan?
At this road’s end.
What is Gallan’s promise? It is home. I-I need to work through this. Round and round-madness to let it run, madness. Will the light never return? Is the joke this: that salvation is all around us, even as we remain for ever blind to it?
Because we believe… there must be a road. A journey, an ordeal, a place to find.
We believe in the road. And in believing we build it, stone by stone, drop by drop. We bleed for our belief, and as the blood flows, the darkness closes in-
‘The Road to Gallan is not a road. Some roads… are not roads at all. Gallan’s promise is not from here to there. It is from now to then. The darkness… the darkness comes from within.’
A truth, and most truths were revelations.
She opened her eyes.
Behind her, parched throats opened in a moaning chorus. Thousands, the sound rising to challenge the rush of black water on stony shores, to waft out and run between the charred tree-stumps climbing the hillsides to the left.
Yan Tovis stood at the shore, not seeing the river sweeping past the toes of her boots. Her gaze had lifted, vision cutting through the mottled atmosphere, to look upon the silent, unlit ruins of a vast city.
The city.
Kharkanas.
The Shake have come home.
Are we… are we home?
The air belonged in a tomb, a forgotten crypt.
And she could see, and she knew. Kharkanas is dead.
The city is dead.
Blind Gallan-you lied to us.
Yan Tovis howled. She fell to her knees, into the numbing water of River Eryn. ‘You lied! You lied!’ Tears ran from her eyes, streamed down her cheeks. Salty beads spun and glittered as they plunged into the lifeless river.
Drop by drop.
To feed the river.
Yedan Derryg led his horse forward, hoofs crunching on the stones, and relaxed the reins so that the beast could drink. He cradled his wounded arm and said nothing as he looked to the right and studied the kneeling, bent-over form of his sister.
The muscles of his jaw bunched beneath his beard, and he straightened to squint at the distant ruins.
Pully stumped up beside him. Her young face looked bruised with shock. ‘We… walked… to this?’
‘Blind Gallan gave us a road,’ said Yedan Derryg. ‘But what do the blind hold to more than anything else? Only that which was sweet in their eyes-the last visions they beheld. We followed the road into his memories.’ After a moment, he shrugged, chewed for a time, and then said, ‘What in the Errant’s name did you expect, witch?’
His horse had drunk enough. Gathering up the reins, he backed the mount from the shore’s edge and then wheeled it round. ‘Sergeant! Spread the soldiers out-the journey has ended. See to the raising of a camp.’ He faced the two witches. ‘You two, bind Twilight’s wounds and feed her. I will be back shortly-’
‘Where are you going?’
Yedan Derryg stared at Pully for a time, and then he set heels to his horse and rode past the witch, downstream along the shoreline.
A thousand paces further on, a stone bridge spanned the river, and beyond it wound a solid, broad road leading to the city. Beneath that bridge, he saw, there was some kind of logjam, so solid as to form a latticed barrier sufficient to push the river out to the sides, creating elongated swampland skirting this side of the raised road.
As he drew closer he saw that most of the logjam seemed to consist of twisted metal bars and cables.
He was forced to slow his mount, picking his way across the silted channel, but at last managed to drive the beast up the bank and on to the road.
Hoofs kicked loose lumps of muck as he rode across the bridge. Downstream of the barrier the river ran still, slightly diminished and cutting a narrower, faster channel. On the flats to either side there was more rusted, unidentifiable wreckage.
Once on the road, he fixed his gaze on the towering gate ahead, but something in its strange, alien architecture made his head spin, so he studied the horizon to the right-where massive towers rose from sprawling, low buildings. He was not certain, but he thought he could detect thin, ragged streamers of smoke from the tops of those towers. After a time, he decided that what he was seeing was the effect of the wind and updraughts from those chimneys pulling loose ashes from deep pits at the base of the smokestacks.
On the road before him, here and there, he saw faint heaps of corroded metal, and the wink of jewellery-corpses had once crowded this approach, but the bones had long since crumbled to dust.
The mottled light cast sickly sheens on the outer walls of the city-and those stones, he could now see, were blackened with soot, a thick crust that glittered like obsidian.
Yedan Derryg halted before the gate. The way was open-no sign of barriers remained beyond torn hinges reduced to corroded lumps. He could see a broad street beyond the arch, and dust on the cobbles black as crushed coal.
‘Walk on, horse.’
And Prince Yedan Derryg rode into Kharkanas.