Keel and half a hull remained of the wreck where us wreckers gathered, and the storm of the night past remained like spit in the air when we clambered down into that bent-rib bed.
I heard many a prayer muttered, hands flashing to ward this and that as befits each soul’s need, its conversation with fear begun in childhood no doubt and, could I recall mine, I too would have been of mind to mime flight from terror.
As it was 1 could only look down at that crabshell harvest of tiny skeletons, the tailed imps with the humanlike faces, their hawk talons and all sorts of strange embellishments to give perfect detail to the bright sunny nightmare.
No wonder is it I forswore the sea that day. Storm and broken ship had lifted a host most unholy and oh there were plenty more no doubt, ringing this damned island.
As it was, it was me who then spoke a most unsavoury tumble of words. ‘I guess not all imps can fly.’
For all that, it was hardly cause to gouge out my eyes now, was it?
– Blind Tobor of the Reach
‘Now there, friends, is one beautiful woman.’
‘If that’s how you like them.’
‘Now why wouldn’t I, y’damned barrow-digger? Thing is, and it’s always the way isn’t it, look at that hopeless thug she’s with. I can’t figure things like that. She could have anyone in here. She could have me, even. But no, there she is, sittin’ aside that limpin’ one-armed, one-eared, one-eyed and no-nosed cattle-dog. I mean, talk about ugly.’
The third man, who had yet to speak, gave him a surreptitious, sidelong look, noting the birdnest hair, the jutting steering-oar ears, the bulging eyes, and the piebald patches that were the scars of fire on features that reminded him of a squashed gourd-sidelong and brief, that glance, and Throatslitter quickly looked away. The last thing he wanted to do was break into another one of his trilling, uncanny laughs that seemed to freeze everyone within earshot.
Never used to have a laugh sounding like that. Damn thing scares even me. Well, he’d taken a throatful of oily flames and it’d done bad things to his voice-reed. The damage only revealed itself when he laughed, and, he recalled, in the months following… all that stuff… there had been few reasons for mirth.
‘There goes that tavernkeeper,’ Deadsmell observed.
It was easy talking about anything and everything, since no-one here but them understood Malazan.
‘There’s another one all moon-eyed over her,’ Sergeant Balm said with a sneer. ‘But who does she sit with? Hood take me, it don’t make sense.’
Deadsmell slowly leaned forward on the table and carefully refilled his tankard. ‘It’s the delivery of that cask. Brullyg’s. Looks like the pretty one and the dead lass have volunteered.’
Balm’s bulging eyes bulged even more. ‘She ain’t dead! I’ll tell you what’s dead, Deadsmell, that puddle-drowned worm between your legs!’
Throatslitter eyed the corporal. ‘1f that’s how you like them,’ he’d said. A half-strangled gulp escaped him, making both his companions flinch.
‘What in Hood’s name are you gonna laugh about?’ Balm demanded. ‘Just don’t, and that’s an order.’
Throatslitter bit down hard on his own tongue. Tears blurred his vision for a moment as pain shot round his skull like a pebble in a bucket. Mute, he shook his head. Laugh? Not me.
The sergeant was glaring at Deadsmell again. ‘Dead? She don’t look much dead to me.’
‘Trust me,’ the corporal replied after taking a deep draught. He belched. ‘Sure, she’s hiding it well, but that woman died some time ago.’
Balm was hunched over the table, scratching at the tangles of his hair. Flakes drifted down to land like specks of paint on the dark wood. ‘Gods below,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe somebody should… I don’t know… maybe… tell her?’
Deadsmell’s mostly hairless brows lifted. ‘Excuse me, ma’am, you have a complexion to die for and I guess that’s what you did.’
Another squawk from Throatslitter.
The corporal continued, ‘Is it true, ma’am, that perfect hair and expensive make-up can hide anything?’
A choked squeal from Throatslitter.
Heads turned.
Deadsmell drank down another mouthful, warming to the subject. ‘Funny, you don’t look dead.’
The high-pitched cackle erupted.
As it died, sudden silence in the main room of the tavern, barring that of a rolling tankard, which then plunged off a tabletop and bounced on the floor.
Balm glared at Deadsmell. ‘You done that. You just kept pushing and pushing. Another word from you, corporal, and you’ll be deader than she is.’
‘What’s that smell?’ Deadsmell asked. ‘Oh right. Essence of putrescence.’
Balm’s cheeks bulged, his face turning a strange purple shade. His yellowy eyes looked moments from leaping out on their stalks.
Throatslitter tried squeezing his own eyes shut, but the image of his sergeant’s face burst into his mind. He shrieked behind his hands. Looked round in helpless appeal.
All attention was fixed on them now, no-one speaking. Even the beautiful woman who’d shipped in with that maimed oaf and the oaf himself-whose one good eye glittered out from the folds of a severe frown-had paused, standing each to one side of the cask of ale the tavernkeeper had brought out. And the keeper himself, staring at Throatslitter with mouth hanging open.
‘Well,’ Deadsmell observed, ‘there goes our credit as bad boys. Throaty here’s making mating calls-hope there’s no turkeys on this island. And you, sergeant, your head looks ready to explode like a cusser.’
Balm hissed, ‘It was your fault, you bastard!’
‘Hardly. As you see, I am calm. Although somewhat embarrassed by my company, alas.’
‘Fine, we’re shifting you off. Hood knows, Gilani’s a damned sight prettier to look at-’
‘Yes, but she happens to be alive, sergeant. Not your type at all.’
‘I didn’t know!’
‘Now that is a most pathetic admission, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Hold on,’ Throatslitter finally interjected. ‘1 couldn’t tell about her either, Deadsmell.’ He jabbed a finger at the corporal. ‘Further proof you’re a damned necromancer. No, forget that shocked look, we ain’t buying no more. You knew she was dead because you can smell ‘em, just like your name says you can. In fact, I’d wager that’s why Braven Tooth gave you that name-doesn’t miss a thing, ever, does he?’
The ambient noise was slowly resurrecting itself, accompanied by more than a few warding gestures, a couple of chairs scraping back through filth as patrons made furtive escapes out of the front door.
Deadsmell drank more ale. And said nothing.
The dead woman and her companion headed out, the latter limping as he struggled to balance the cask on one shoulder.
Balm grunted. ‘There they go. Typical, isn’t it? Just when we’re under strength, too.’
‘Nothing to worry about, sergeant,’ Deadsmell said. ‘It’s all in hand. Though if the keeper decides on following…’
Throatslitter grunted. ‘If he does, he’ll regret it.’ He rose then, adjusting the marine-issue rain cape. ‘Lucky you two, getting to sit here adding fat to your arses. It’s damned cold out there, you know.’
‘I’m making note of all this insubordination,’ Balm grumbled. Then tapped his head. ‘In here.’
‘Well that’s a relief,’ Throatslitter said. He left the tavern.
Shake Brullyg, tyrant of Second Maiden Fort, would-be King of the Isle, slouched in the old prison prefect’s high-backed chair and glared from under heavy brows at the two foreigners at the table, beside the chamber’s door. They were playing another of their damned games. Knuckle bones, elongated wooden bowl and split crow-feathers.
‘Two bounces earns me a sweep,’ one of them said, although Brullyg was not quite sure of that-picking up a language on the sly was no easy thing, but he’d always been good with languages. Shake, Letherii, Tiste Edur, Fent, trader’s tongue and Meckros. And now, spatterings of this… this Malazan.
Timing. They’d taken it from him, as easily as they’d taken his knife, his war-axe. Foreigners easing into the harbour-not so many aboard as to cause much worry, or so it had seemed. Besides, there had been enough trouble to chew on right then. A sea filled with mountains of ice, bearing down on the Isle, more ominous than any fleet or army. They said they could take care of that-and he’d been a drowning man going down for the last time.
Would-be King of the Isle, crushed and smeared flat under insensate ice. Face to face with that kind of truth had been like dragon claws through his sail. After all he’d done…
Timing. He now wondered if these Malazans had brought the ice with them. Sent it spinning down on the season’s wild current, just so they could arrive one step ahead and offer to turn it away. He’d not even believed them, Brullyg recalled, but desperation had spoken with its very own voice. ‘Do that and you’ll be royal guests for as long as you like.’ They’d smiled at that offer.
I am a fool. And worse.
And now, two miserable squads ruled over him and every damned resident of this island, and there was not a thing he could do about it. Except keep the truth from everyone else. And that’s getting a whole lot harder with every day that passes.
‘Sweep’s in the trough, pluck a knuckle and that about does it,’ said the other soldier.
Possibly.
‘It skidded when you breathed-I saw it, you cheat!’
‘I ain’t breathed.’
‘Oh right, you’re a Hood-damned corpse, are you?’
‘No, I just ain’t breathed when you said I did. Look, it’s in the trough, you deny it?’
‘Here, let me take a closer look. Ha, no it isn’t!’
‘You just sighed and moved it, damn you!’
‘I didn’t sigh.’
‘Right, and you’re not losing neither, are ya?’
‘Just because I’m losing doesn’t mean I sighed right then. And see, it’s not in the trough.’
‘Hold on while I breathe-’
‘Then I’ll sigh!’
‘Breathing is what winners do. Sighing is what losers do. Therefore, I win.’
‘Sure, for you cheating is as natural as breathing, isn’t it?’
Brullyg slowly shifted his attention from the two at the door, regarded the last soldier in the chamber. By the coven she was a beauty. Such dark, magical skin, and those tilted eyes just glowed with sweet invitation-damn him, all the mysteries of the world were in those eyes. And that mouth! Those lips! If he could just get rid of the other two, and maybe steal away those wicked knives of hers, why then he’d discover those mysteries the way she wanted him to.
I’m King of the Isle. About to be. One more week, and if none of the dead Queen’s bitch daughters show up before then, it all falls to me. King of the Isle. Almost. Close enough to use the title, sure. And what woman wouldn’t set aside a miserable soldier’s life for the soft, warm bed of a king’s First Concubine? Sure, that is indeed a Letherii way, but as king I can make my own rules. And if the coven doesn’t like it, well, there’re the cliffs.
One of the Malazans at the table said, ‘Careful, Masan, he’s getting that look again.’
The woman named Masan Gilani straightened catlike in her chair, lifting her smooth, not-scrawny arms in an arching stretch that transformed her large breasts into round globes, tautening the worn fabric of her shirt. “S long as he keeps thinking with the wrong brain, Lobe, we’re good and easy.’ She then settled back, straightening her perfect legs.
‘We should bring him another whore,’ the one named Lobe said as he gathered the knuckle bones into a small leather bag.
‘No,’ Masan Gilani said. ‘Deadsmell barely revived the last one.’
But that’s not the real reason, is it? Brullyg smiled. No, you want me for yourself. Besides, I’m not usually like that. 1 was taking out some… frustrations. That’s all. His smile faded. They sure do use their hands a lot when talking. Gestures of all sorts. Strange people, these Malazans. He cleared his throat and spoke Letherii in the slow way they seemed to need. ‘I could do with another walk. My legs want exercise.’ A wink towards Masan Gilani, who responded with a knowing smile that lit him up low down, enough to make him shift in the chair. ‘My people need to see me, you understand? If they start getting suspicious-well, if anybody knows what a house arrest looks like, it is the citizens of Second Maiden Fort.’
In terribly accented Letherii, Lobe said, ‘You get your ale comes today, right? Best want to be waiting here for that. We walk you tonight.’
Like a Liberty mistress her pampered dog. Isn’t that nice? And when I lift a leg and piss against you, Lobe, what then?
These soldiers here did not frighten him. It was the other squad, the one still up-island. The one with that scrawny little mute girl. And she had a way of showing up as if from nowhere. From a swirl of light-he wondered what the Shake witches would make of that cute trick. All Lobe needed to do-Lobe, or Masan Gilani, or Gait, any of them-all they needed to do was call her name.
Sinn.
A real terror that one, and not a talon showing. He suspected he’d need the whole coven to get rid of her. Preferably with great losses. The coven had a way of crowding the chosen rulers of the Shake. And they’re on their way, like ravens to a carcass, all spit and cackle. Of course, they can’t fly. Can’t even swim. No, they’ll need boats, to take them across the strait-and that’s assuming the Reach isn’t now a jumbled mass of ice, which is how it looks from here.
The soldier named Gait rose from his chair, wincing at some twinge in his lower back, then ambled over to what had been the prefect’s prize possession, a tapestry that dominated an entire wall. Faded with age-and stained in the lower left corner with dried spatters of the poor prefect’s blood-the hanging depicted the First Landing of the Letherii, although in truth that was not the colonizers’ first landing. The fleet had come within sight of shore somewhere opposite the Reach. Fent canoes had ventured out to establish contact with the strangers. An exchange of gifts had gone awry, resulting in the slaughter of the Fent men and the subsequent enslavement of the women and children in the village. Three more settlements had suffered the same fate. The next four, southward down the coast, had been hastily abandoned.
The fleet had eventually rounded Sadon Peninsula on the north coast of the Ouster Sea, then sailed past the Lenth Arm and into Gedry Bay. The city of Gedry was founded on the place of the First Landing, at the mouth of the Lether River. This tapestry, easily a thousand years old, was proof enough of that. The general belief these days was that the landing occurred at the site of the capital itself, well up the river. Strange how the past was remade to suit the present. A lesson there Brullyg could use, once he was king. The Shake were a people of failure, fated to know naught but tragedy and pathos. Guardians of the shore, but incapable of guarding it against the sea’s tireless hunger. All of that needed… revising.
The Letherii had known defeat. Many times. Their history on this land was bloody, rife with their betrayals, their lies, their heartless cruelties. All of which were now seen as triumphant and heroic.
This is how a people must see itself. As we Shake must. A blinding beacon on this dark shore. When I am king…
‘Look at this damned thing,’ Gait said. ‘Here, that writing in the borders-that could be Ehrlii.’
‘But it isn’t,’ Lobe muttered. He had dismantled one of his daggers; on the table before him was the pommel, a few rivets and pins, a wooden handle wrapped in leather, a slitted hilt and the tanged blade. It seemed the soldier was now at a loss on how to put it all back together again.
‘Some of the letters-’
‘Ehrlii and Letherii come from the same language,’ Lobe said.
Gait’s glare was suspicious. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t, you idiot. It’s just what I was told.’
‘Who?’
‘Ebron, I think. Or Shard. What difference does it make?
Somebody who knows things, that’s all. Hood, you’re making my brain hurt. And look at this mess.’
‘Is that my knife?’
‘Was.’
Brullyg saw Lobe cock his head, then the soldier said, ‘Footsteps bottom of the stairs.’ And with these words, his hands moved in a blur, and even as Gait was walking towards the door, Lobe was twisting home the pommel and flipping the knife into Gait’s path. Where it was caught one-handed-Gait had not even slowed in passing.
Brullyg settled back in his chair.
Rising, Masan Gilani loosened from their scabbards the vicious-looking long-bladed knives at her hips. ‘Wish I was with my own squad,’ she said, then drew a step closer to where Brullyg sat.
‘Stay put,’ she murmured.
Mouth dry, he nodded.
‘It’s likely the ale delivery,’ Lobe said from one side of the door, while Gait unlocked it and pushed it out wide enough to enable him to peer through the crack.
‘Sure, but those boots sound wrong.’
‘Not the usual drooling fart and his son?’
‘Not even close.’
‘All right.’ Lobe reached under the table and lifted into view a crossbow. A truly foreign weapon, constructed entirely of iron-or something very much like Letherii steel. The cord was thick as a man’s thumb, and the quarrel set into the groove was tipped with an x-shaped head that would punch through a Letherii shield as if it was birch bark. The soldier cranked the claw back and somehow locked it in place. Then he moved along the door’s wall to the corner.
Gait edged back as the footsteps on the stairs drew nearer. He made a series of hand gestures to which Masan Gilani grunted in response and Brullyg heard ripping cloth behind him and a moment later the point of a knife pressed between his shoulder blades-thrust right through the damned chair. She leaned down. ‘Be nice and be stupid, Brullyg. We know these two and we can guess why they’re here.’
Glancing back at Masan Gilani, nodding once, Gait then moved into the doorway, opening wide the door. ‘Well,’ he drawled in his dreadful Letherii, ‘if it isn’t the captain and her first mate. Run out of money comes too soon? What you making to comes with ale?’
A heavy growl from beyond. ‘What did he say, Captain?’
‘Whatever it was, he said it badly.’ A woman, and that voice-Brullyg frowned. That was a voice he had heard before. The knife tip dug deeper into his spine.
‘We’re bringing Shake Brullyg his ale,’ the woman continued.
‘That’s nice,’ Gait replied. ‘We see he comes gets it.’
‘Shake Brullyg’s an old friend of mine. I want to see him.’
‘He’s busy.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Thinking.’
‘Shake Brullyg? I really doubt that-and who in the Errant’s name are you anyway? You’re no Letherii, and you and those friends of yours hanging out at the tavern, well, none of you were prisoners here either. I asked around. You’re from that strange ship anchored in the bay.’
‘Why, Captain, it is simple. We comes to goes all the ice. So Brullyg he rewards us. Guests. Royal guests. Now we keep him company. He is smiles nice all the time. We nice too.’
‘Nice idiots, I think,’ the man outside-presumably the captain’s first mate-said in a growl. ‘Now, my arm’s getting tired-move aside and let me deliver this damned thing.’
Gait glanced back over a shoulder at Masan Gilani, who said in Malazan, ‘Why you looking at me? I’m just here to keep this man’s tongue hanging.’
Brullyg licked sweat from his lips. So even knowing that, why does it still work? Am 1 that stupid? ‘Let them in,’ he said in a low voice. ‘So I can ease their minds and send them away.’
Gait looked at Masan Gilani again, and though she said nothing, some kind of communication must have passed between them, for he shrugged and stepped back. ‘Comes the ale.’
Brullyg watched as the two figures entered the chamber. The one in the lead was Skorgen Kaban the Pretty. Which meant… yes. The would-be king smiled, ‘Shurq Elalle. You’ve not aged a day since I last saw you. And Skorgen-put the cask down, before you dislocate your shoulder and add lopsided to your list of ailments. Broach the damned thing and we can all have a drink. Oh,’ he added as he watched the two pirates take in the soldiers-Skorgen almost jumping when he saw Lobe in the corner, crossbow now cradled in his arms-‘these are some of my royal guests. At the door, Gait. In the corner, Lobe, and this lovely here with the one hand behind the back of my chair is Masan Gilani.’
Shurq Elalle collected one of the chairs near the door and dragged it opposite Brullyg. Sitting, she folded one leg over the other and laced her hands together on her lap. ‘Brullyg, you half-mad cheating miser of a bastard. If you were alone I’d be throttling that flabby neck of yours right now.’
‘Can’t say I’m shocked by your animosity,’ Shake Brullyg replied, suddenly comforted by his Malazan bodyguards. ‘But you know, it was never as bad or ugly as you thought it was. You just never gave me the chance to explain-’
Shurq’s smile was both beautiful and dark. ‘Why, Brullyg, you were never one to explain yourself.’
‘A man changes.’
‘That’d be a first.’
Brullyg resisted shrugging, since that would have opened a nasty slit in the flesh of his back. Instead, he lifted his hands, palms up, as he said, ‘Let’s set aside all that history. The Undying Gratitude rests safe and sound in my harbour. Cargo offloaded and plenty of coin in your purse. I imagine you’re itching to leave our blessed isle.’
‘Something like that,’ she replied. ‘Alas, it seems we’re having trouble getting, uh, permission. There’s the biggest damned ship I’ve ever seen blocking the harbour mouth right now, and a sleek war galley of some kind is making for berth at the main pier. You know,’ she added, with another quick smile, ‘it’s all starting to look like some kind of… well… blockade.’
The knife-point left Brullyg’s back and Masan Gilani, sliding the weapon into its scabbard, stepped round. When she spoke this time, it was in a language Brullyg had never heard before.
Lobe levelled the crossbow again, aiming towards Brullyg, and answered Masan in the same tongue.
Skorgen, who had been kneeling beside the cask, thumping at the spigot with the heel of one hand, now rose. ‘What in the Errant’s name is going on here, Brullyg?’
A voice spoke from the doorway, ‘Just this. Your captain’s right. Our waiting’s done.’
The soldier named Throatslitter was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed. He was smiling across at Masan Gilani. ‘Good news ain’t it? Now you can take your delicious curves and such and dance your way down to the pier-I’m sure Urb and the rest are missing ‘em something awful.’
Shurq Elalle, who had not moved from her chair, sighed loudly then said, ‘Pretty, I don’t think we’ll be leaving this room for a while. Find us some tankards and pour, why don’t you?’
‘We’re hostages?’
‘No no,’ his captain replied. ‘Guests.’
Masan Gilani, hips swaying considerably more than was necessary, sauntered out of the chamber.
Under his breath, Brullyg groaned.
‘As I said earlier,’ Shurq murmured, ‘men don’t change.’ She glanced over at Gait, who had drawn up the other chair. ‘I assume you won’t let me strangle this odious worm.’
‘Sorry, no.’ A quick smile. ‘Not yet anyway.’
‘So, who are your friends in the harbour?’
Gait winked. ‘We’ve a little work to do, Captain. And we’ve decided this island will do just fine as headquarters.’
‘Your skill with Letherii has noticeably improved.’
‘Must be your fine company, Captain.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Throatslitter said from the doorway. ‘Deadsmell says she’s standing on the wrong side of Hood’s gate, despite what you see or think you see.’
Gait slowly paled.
‘Not sure what he means by all that,’ Shurq Elalle said, her sultry eyes settling on Gait, ‘but my appetites are as lively as ever.’
‘That’s… disgusting.’
‘Explains the sweat on your brow, 1 suppose.’
Gait hastily wiped his forehead. ‘This one’s worse than Masan Gilani,’ he complained.
Brullyg shifted nervously in his chair. Timing. These damned Malazans had it by the bucketful. Freedom should’ ve lasted longer than this. ‘Hurry up with that ale, Pretty.’
Finding yourself standing, alone, cut loose, with an unhappy army squirming in your hands, was a commander’s greatest nightmare. And when you got them running straight into the wilderness of an ocean at the time, it’s about as bad as it can get.
Fury had united them, for a while. Until the truth started to sink in, like botfly worms under the skin. Their homeland wanted them all dead. There’d be no seeing family-no wives, husbands, mothers, fathers. No children to bounce on one knee while working numbers in the head-wondering which neighbour’s eyes you’re looking down at. No chasms to cross, no breaches to mend. Every loved one as good as dead.
Armies get unruly when that happens. Almost as bad as no loot and no pay.
We were soldiers of the empire. Our families depended on the wages, the tax relief, the buy-outs and the pensions. And a lot of us were young enough to think about signing out, making a new life, one that didn’t involve swinging a sword and looking in the eye of some snarling thug wanting to cut you in two. Some of us were damned tired.
So, what kept us together?
Well, no ship likes to sail alone, does it?
But Fist Blistig knew that there was more to it. Dried blood holding everyone in place like glue. The seared burn of betrayal, the sting of fury. And a commander who sacrificed her own love to see them all survive.
He had spent too many days and nights on the Froth Wolf standing no less than five paces from the Adjunct, studying her stiff back as she faced the surly seas. A woman who showed nothing, but some things no mortal could hide, and one of those things was grief. He had stared and he had wondered. Was she going to come through this?
Someone-might have been Keneb, who at times seemed to understand Tavore better than anyone else, maybe even Tavore herself-had then made a fateful decision. The Adjunct had lost her aide. In Malaz City. Aide, and lover. Now, maybe nothing could be done about the lover, but the role of aide was an official position, a necessary one for any commander. Not a man, of course-would have to be a woman for certain.
Blistig recalled that night, even as the eleventh bell was sounded on deck-the ragged fleet, flanked by the Perish Thrones of War, was three days east of Kartool, beginning a northward-wending arc to take them round the tumultuous, deadly straits between Malaz Island and the coast of Korel-and the Adjunct was standing alone just beyond the forecastle mast, the wind tugging fitfully at her rain cape, making Blistig think of a broken-winged crow. A second figure appeared, halting close to Tavore on her left. Where T’amber would stand, where any aide to a commander would stand.
Tavore’s head had turned in startlement, and words were exchanged-too low for Blistig’s ears-followed by a salute from the newcomer.
The Adjunct is alone. So too is another woman, seemingly as bound up in grief as Tavore herself, yet this one possesses an edge, an anger tempered like Aren steel. Short on patience, which might be precisely what’s needed here.
Was it you, Keneb?
Of course, Lostara Yil, once a captain in the Red Blades, now just one more outlawed soldier, had revealed no inclinations to take a woman to her bed. Not anyone, in fact. Yet she was no torture to look at, if one had a taste for broken glass made pretty. That and Pardu tattoos. But it was just as likely that the Adjunct wasn’t thinking in those terms. Too soon. Wrong woman.
Throughout the fleet, officers had been reporting talk of mutiny among the soldiers-excepting, oddly enough, the marines, who never seemed capable of thinking past the next meal or game of Troughs. A succession of reports, delivered in increasingly nervous tones, and it had seemed the Adjunct was unwilling or unable to even so much as care.
You can heal wounds of the flesh well enough, but it’s the other ones that can bleed out a soul.
After that night, Lostara Yil clung to a resentful Tavore like a damned tick. Commander’s aide. She understood the role. In the absence of actual direction from her commander, Lostara Yil assumed the task of managing nearly eight thousand miserable soldiers. The first necessity was clearing up the matter of pay. The fleet was making sail for Theft, a paltry kingdom torn to tatters by Malazan incursions and civil war. Supplies needed to be purchased, but more than that, the soldiers needed leave and for that there must be not only coin but the promise of more to come, lest the entire army disappear into the back streets of the first port of call.
The army’s chests could not feed what was owed.
So Lostara hunted down Banaschar, the once-priest of D’rek. Hunted him down and cornered him. And all at once, those treasury chests were overflowing.
Now, why Banaschar? How did Lostara know?
Grub, of course. That scrawny runt climbing the rigging with those not-quite-right bhok’aral-I ain’t once seen him come down, no matter how brutal the weather. Yet Grub somehow knew about Banaschar’s hidden purse, and somehow got the word to Lostara Yil.
The Fourteenth Army was suddenly rich. Too much handed out all at once would have been disastrous, but Lostara knew that. Enough that it be seen, that the rumours were let loose to scamper like stoats through every ship in the fleet.
Soldiers being what they were, it wasn’t long before they were griping about something else, and this time the Adjunct’s aide could do nothing to give answer.
Where in Hood’s name are we going?
Are we still an army and if we are, who are we fighting for? The notion of becoming mercenaries did not sit well, it turned out.
The story went that Lostara Yil had it out with Tavore one night in the Adjunct’s cabin. A night of screams, curses and, maybe, tears. Or something else happened. Something as simple as Lostara wearing her commander down, like D’rek’s own soldier worms gnawing the ankles of the earth, snap snick right through. Whatever the details, the Adjunct was… awakened. The entire Fourteenth was days from falling to pieces.
A call was issued for the Fists and officers ranking captain and higher to assemble on the Froth Wolf. And, to the astonishment of everyone, Tavore Paran appeared on deck and delivered a speech. Sinn and Banaschar were present, and through sorcery the Adjunct’s words were heard by everyone, even crew high in the riggings and crow’s nests.
A Hood-damned speech.
From Tavore. Tighter-lipped than a cat at Togg’s teats, but she talked. Not long, not complicated. And there was no brilliance, no genius. It was plain, every word picked up from dusty ground, strung together on a chewed thong, not even spat on to bring out a gleam. Not a precious stone to be found. No pearls, no opals, no sapphires.
Raw garnet at best.
At best.
Tied to Tavore’s sword belt, there had been a finger bone. Yellowed, charred at one end. She stood in silence for a time, her plain features looking drawn, aged, her eyes dull as smudged slate. When at last she spoke, her voice was low, strangely measured, devoid of all emotion.
Blistig could still remember every word.
‘There have been armies. Burdened with names, the legacy of meetings, of battles, of betrayals. The history behind the name is each army’s secret language-one that no-one else can understand, much less share. The First Sword of Dassem Ultor-the Plains of Unta, the Grissian Hills, Li Heng, Y’Ghatan. The Bridgeburners-Raraku, Black Dog, Mott Wood, Pale, Black Coral. Coltaine’s Seventh-Gelor Ridge, Vathar Crossing and the Day of Pure Blood, Sanimon, the Fall.
‘Some of you share a few of those-with comrades now fallen, now dust. They are, for you, the cracked vessels of your grief and your pride. And you cannot stand in one place for long, lest the ground turn to depthless mud around your feet.’ Her eyes fell then, a heartbeat, another, before she looked up once more, scanning the array of sombre faces before her.
‘Among us, among the Bonehunters, our secret language has begun. Cruel in its birth at Aren, sordid in a river of old blood. Coltaine’s blood. You know this. I need tell you none of this. We have our own Raraku. We have our own Y’Ghatan. We have Malaz City.
‘In the civil war on Theft, a warlord who captured a rival’s army then destroyed them-not by slaughter; no, he simply gave the order that each soldier’s weapon hand lose its index finger. The maimed soldiers were then sent back to the warlord’s rival. Twelve thousand useless men and women. To feed, to send home, to swallow the bitter taste of defeat. I was… I was reminded of that story, not long ago.’
Yes, Blistig thought then, and 1 think I know by whom. Gods, we all do.
‘We too are maimed. In our hearts. Each of you knows this.
‘And so we carry, tied to our belts, a piece of bone. Legacy of a severed finger. And yes, we cannot help but know bitterness.’ She paused, held back for a long moment, and it seemed the silence itself grated in his skull.
Tavore resumed. ‘The Bonehunters will speak in our secret language. We sail to add another name to our burden, and it may be it will prove our last. I do not believe so, but there are clouds before the face of the future-we cannot see. We cannot know.
‘The island of Sepik, a protectorate of the Malazan Empire, is now empty of human life. Sentenced to senseless slaughter, every man, child and woman. We know the face of the slayer. We have seen the dark ships. We have seen the harsh magic unveiled.
‘We are Malazan. We remain so, no matter the judgement of the Empress. Is this enough reason to give answer?
‘No, it is not. Compassion is never enough. Nor is the hunger for vengeance. But, for now, for what awaits us, perhaps they will do. We are the Bonehunters, and sail to another name. Beyond Aren, beyond Raraku and beyond Y’Ghatan, we now cross the world to find the first name that will be truly our own. Shared by none other. We sail to give answer.
‘There is more. But I will not speak of that beyond these words: “What awaits you in the dusk of the old world’s passing, shall go… unwitnessed.” T’amber’s words.’ Another long spell of pained silence.
‘They are hard and well might they feed spite, if in weakness we permit such. But to those words I say this, as your commander: we shall be our own witness, and that will be enough. It must be enough. It must ever be enough.’
Even now, over a year later, Blistig wondered if she had said what was needed. In truth, he was not quite certain what she had said. The meaning of it. Witnessed, unwitnessed, does it really make a difference? But he knew the answer to that, even if he could not articulate precisely what it was he knew. Something stirred deep in the pit of his soul, as if his thoughts were black waters caressing unseen rocks, bending to shapes that even ignorance could not alter.
Well, how can any of this make sense? I do not have the words.
But damn me, she did. Back then. She did.
Unwitnessed. There was crime in that notion. A profound injustice against which he railed. In silence. Like every other soldier in the Bonehunters. Maybe. No, I am not mistaken-I see something in their eyes. I can see it. We rail against injustice, yes. That what we do will be seen by no-one. Our fate unmeasured.
Tavore, what have you awakened? And, Hood take us, what makes you think we are equal to any of this?
There had been no desertions. He did not understand. He didn’t think he would ever understand. What had happened that night, what had happened in that strange speech.
She told us we would never see our loved ones again. That is what she told us: Isn’t it?
Leaving us with what?
With each other, I suppose.
‘We shall be our own witness.’
And was that enough?
Maybe. So far.
But now we are here. We have arrived. The fleet, the fleet burns-gods, that she would do that. Not a single transport left. Burned, sunk to the bottom off this damned shore. We are… cut away.
Welcome, Bonehunters, to the empire of Lether.
Alas, we are not here in festive spirit.
The treacherous ice was behind them now, the broken mountains that had filled the sea and clambered onto the Fent Reach, crushing everything on it to dust. No ruins to ponder over in some distant future, not a single sign of human existence left on that scraped rock. Ice was annihilation. It did not do what sand did, did not simply bury every trace. It was as the Jaghut had meant it: negation, a scouring down to bare rock.
Lostara Yil drew her fur-lined cloak tighter about herself as she followed the Adjunct to the forecastle deck of the Froth Wolf. The sheltered harbour was before them, a half-dozen ships anchored in the bay, including the Silanda-its heap of Tiste Andii heads hidden beneath thick tarpaulin. Getting the bone whistle from Gesler hadn’t been easy, she recalled; and among the soldiers of the two squads left to command the haunted craft, the only one willing to use it had been that corporal, Deadsmell. Not even Sinn would touch it.
Before the splitting of the fleet there had been a flurry of shifting about among the squads and companies. The strategy for this war demanded certain adjustments, and, as was expected, few had been thrilled with the changes. Soldiers are such conservative bastards.
But at least we pulled Blistig away from real command-worse than a rheumy old dog, that one.
Lostara, still waiting for her commander to speak, turned for a glance back at the Throne of War blockading the mouth of the harbour. The last Perish ship in these waters, for now. She hoped it would be enough for what was to come.
‘Where is Sergeant Cord’s squad now/’ the Adjunct asked.
‘Northwest tip of the island,’ Lostara replied. ‘Sinn is keeping the ice away-’
‘How?’ Tavore demanded, not for the first time.
And Lostara could but give the same answer she had given countless times before. ‘I don’t know, Adjunct.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Ebron believes that this ice is dying. A Jaghut ritual, crumbling. He notes the water lines on this island’s cliffs-well past any earlier high water mark.’
To this the Adjunct said nothing. She seemed unaffected by the cold, damp wind, barring an absence of colour on her features, as if her blood had withdrawn from the surface of her flesh. Her hair was cut very short, as if to discard every hint of femininity.
‘Grub says the world is drowning,’ Lostara said.
Tavore turned slightly and looked up at the unlit shrouds high overhead. ‘Grub. Another mystery,’ she said.
‘He seems able to communicate with the Nachts, which is, well, remarkable.’
‘Communicate? It’s become hard to tell them apart.’
The Froth Wolf was sidling past the anchored ships, angling towards the stone pier, on which stood two figures. Probably Sergeant Balm and Deadsmell.
Tavore said, ‘Go below, Captain, and inform the others we are about to disembark.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Remain a soldier, Lostara Yil told herself, a statement that whispered through her mind a hundred times a day. Remain a soldier, and all the rest will go away.
With dawn’s first light paling the eastern sky, the mounted troop of Letherii thundered down the narrow coastal track, the berm of the old beach ridge on their left, the impenetrable, tangled forest on their right. The rain had dissolved into a clammy mist, strengthening the night’s last grip of darkness, and the pounding of hoofs was oddly muted, quick to dwindle once the last rider was out of sight.
Puddles in the track settled once more, clouded with mud. The mists swirled, drifted into the trees.
An owl, perched high on a branch of a dead tree, had watched the troop pass. The echoes fading, it remained where it was, not moving, its large unblinking eyes fixed on a chaotic mass of shrubs and brambles amidst thin-boled poplars. Where something was not quite as it seemed. Unease sufficient to confuse its predatory mind.
The scrub blurred then, as if disintegrating in a fierce gale-although no wind stirred-and upon its vanishing, figures rose as if from nowhere.
The owl decided it would have to wait a little longer. While hungry, it nevertheless experienced a strange contentment, followed by a kind of tug on its mind, as of something… leaving.
Bottle rolled onto his back. ‘Over thirty riders,’ he said. ‘Lancers, lightly armoured. Odd stirrups. Hood, but my skull aches. I hate Mockra-’
‘Enough bitching,’ Fiddler said as he watched his squad-barring a motionless Bottle-drawing in, with Gesler’s doing the same beneath some trees a few paces away. ‘You sure they didn’t smell nothing?’
‘Those first scouts nearly stepped right on us,’ Bottle said. ‘Something there… especially in one of them. As if he was somehow… I don’t know, sensitized, I suppose. Him and this damned ugly coast where we don’t belong-’
‘Just answer the questions,’ Fiddler cut in again.
‘We should’ve ambushed the whole lot,’ Koryk muttered, checking the knots on all the fetishes he was wearing, then dragging over his oversized supply pack to examine the straps.
Fiddler shook his head. ‘No fighting until our feet dry. I hate that.’
‘Then why are you a damned marine, Sergeant?’
‘Accident. Besides, those were Letherii. We’re to avoid contact with them, for now.’
‘I’m hungry,’ Bottle said. ‘Well, no. It was the owl, dammit. Anyway, you would not believe what looking through an owl’s eyes at night is like. Bright as noon in the desert.’
‘Desert,’ Tarr said. ‘I miss the desert.’
‘You’d miss a latrine pit if it was the last place you crawled out of,’ Smiles observed. ‘Koryk had his crossbow trained on those riders, Sergeant.’
‘What are you, my little sister?’ Koryk demanded. He then mimed Smiles’s voice. ‘He didn’t shake his baby-maker when he’d done peeing, Sergeant! I saw it!’
‘See it?’ Smiles laughed. ‘I’d never get that close to you, half-blood, trust me.’
‘She’s getting better,’ Cuttle said to Koryk, whose only response was a grunt.
‘Quiet everyone,’ Fiddler said. ‘No telling who else lives in these woods-or might be using the road.’
‘We’re alone,’ Bottle pronounced, slowly sitting up, then gripping the sides of his head. ‘Hiding fourteen grunting, farting soldiers ain’t easy. And once we get to more populated areas it’s going to be worse.’
‘Getting one miserable mage to shut his mouth is even harder,’ Fiddler said. ‘Check your gear, everyone. I want us a ways deeper into these woods before we dig in for the day.’ For the past month on the ships the Bonehunters had been shifting over into reversing their sleep cycles. A damned hard thing to do, as it turned out. But now at least pretty much everyone was done turning round. Lost the tans, anyway. Fiddler moved over to where Gesler crouched.
Except this gold-skinned bastard and his hairy corporal. ‘Your people ready?’
Gesler nodded. ‘Heavies are complaining their armour’s gonna rust.’
‘So long as they keep the squeaking to a minimum.’ Fiddler glanced at the huddled soldiers of Gesler’s squad, then back towards his own. ‘Some army,’ he said under his breath.
‘Some invasion, aye,’ Gesler agreed. ‘Ever known anyone to do it this way?’
Fiddler shook his head. ‘It makes a weird kind of sense, though, doesn’t it? The Edur are spread thin, from all reports. The oppressed are legion-all these damned Letherii.’
‘That troop just passed us didn’t look much oppressed to me, Fid.’
‘Well, I suppose we’ll find out one way or the other, won’t we? Now, let’s get this invasion under way.’
‘A moment,’ Gesler said, settling a scarred hand on Fiddler’s shoulder. ‘She burned the fucking transports, Fid.’
The sergeant winced.
‘Hard to miss the point of that, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Which meaning are you referring to, Gesler? The one about patrols on this coast seeing the flames or the one about for us there’s no going back?’
‘Hood take me, I can only chew on one piece of meat at a time, you know? Start with the first one. If I was this damned empire, I’d be flooding this coastline with soldiers before this day’s sun is down. And no matter how much Mockra our squad mages now know, we’re going to mess up. Sooner or later, Fid.’
‘Would that be before or after we start drawing blood?’
‘I ain’t even thinking about once we start killing Hood-damned Tiste Edur. I’m thinking about today.’
‘Someone stumbles onto us and we get nasty and dirty, then we bolt according to the plan.’
‘And try to stay alive, aye. Great. And what if these Letherii ain’t friendly?’
‘We just keep going, and steal what we need.’
‘We should’ve landed en masse, not just marines. With shields locked and see what they can throw at us.’
Fiddler rubbed at the back of his neck. Then sighed and said, ‘You know what they can throw at us, Gesler. Only the next time, there won’t be Quick Ben dancing in the air and matching them horror for horror. This is a night war we’re looking at. Ambushes. Knives in the dark. Cut and bolt.’
‘With no way out.’
‘Aye. So I do wonder if she lit up our transports to tell ‘em we’re here, or to tell us there’s no point in thinking about retreat. Or both.’
Gesler grunted. ‘ “Unwitnessed”, she said. Is that where we are? Already?’
Shrugging, Fiddler half rose. ‘Might be, Gesler. Let’s get moving-the birds are twittering almost as loud as we are.’
But, as they tramped deeper into the wet, rotting forest, Gesler’s last question haunted Fiddler. Is he right, Adjunct? We there already? Invading a damned empire in two-squad units. Running alone, unsupported, living or dying on the shoulders of a single squad mage. What if Bottle gets killed in the first scrap? We’re done for, that’s what. Best keep Corabb nice and close to Bottle, and hope the old rebel’s luck keeps pulling.
At the very least, the waiting was over. Real ground underfoot-they’d all wobbled like drunks coming up from the strand, which might have been amusing in other circumstances. But not when we could have staggered right into a patrol. Things were feeling solid now, though. Thank Hood. Well, as solid as one could be stumping over moss, overgrown sinkholes and twisted roots. Almost as bad as Black Dog. No, don’t think like that. Look ahead, Fid. Keep looking ahead.
Somewhere above them, through a mad witch’s weave of branches, the sky was lightening.
Any more complainin’ from any of you and I’ll cut off my left tit.’
A half-circle of faces ogled her. Good. She was pleased with the way that always worked.
‘Good thing the swim put you out,’ Bowl said.
Sergeant Hellian frowned at the huge soldier. Put out? ‘Heavies are idiots, you know that? Now.’ She looked down and tried counting the number of rum casks she’d managed to drag from the hold before the flames went wild. Six, maybe ten. Nine. She waved at the blurry array. ‘Everybody make room in your packs. For one each.’
Touchy Brethless said, ‘Sergeant, ain’t we supposed to find Urb and his squad? They gotta be close.’ Then her corporal spoke again, this time in a different voice, ‘He’s right. Bowl, where’d you come from again? Up the shore or down it?’
‘I don’t remember. It was dark.’
‘Hold on,’ Hellian said, taking a sidestep to maintain her balance on the pitching deck. No, the pitching ground. ‘You’re not in my squad, Bowl. Go away.’
‘I’d like nothing better,’ he replied, squinting at the wall of trees surrounding them. ‘I ain’t carrying no cask of damned ale. Look at you, Sergeant, you’re scorched all over.’
Hellian straightened. ‘Now hold on, we’re talking ‘ssential victuals. But I’ll tell you what’s a lot worse. I bet that fire was seen by somebody-and I hope the fool that started it is a heap of ash right now, that’s what I hope. Somebody’s seen it, that’s for sure.’
‘Sergeant, they lit up all the transports,’ said another one of her soldiers. Beard, thick chest, solid as a tree trunk and probably not much smarter either. What was his name?
‘Who are you?’
The man rubbed at his eyes. ‘Balgrid.’
‘Right, Baldy, now try explaining to me how some fool swam from ship to ship and set them afire? Well? That’s what I thought.’
‘Someone’s coming,’ hissed the squad sapper.
The one with the stupid name. A name she always had trouble remembering. Could be? No. Sometimes? Unsure? Ah, Maybe. Our sapper’s name is Maybe. And his friend there, that’s Lutes. And there’s Tavos Pond-he’s too tall. Tall soldiers get arrows in their foreheads. Why isn’t he dead? ‘Anybody got a bow?’ she asked.
A rustling of undergrowth, then two figures emerged from the gloom.
Hellian stared at the first one, feeling an inexplicable surge of rage. She rubbed thoughtfully at her jaw, trying to remember something about this sad-looking soldier. The rage drained away, was replaced with heartfelt affection.
Bowl stepped past her. ‘Sergeant Urb, thank Hood you found us.’
‘Urb?’ Hellian asked, weaving as she moved closer and peered up into the man’s round face. ‘That you?’
‘Found the rum, did you?’
Lutes said from behind her, ‘She’s poisoning her liver.’
‘My liver’s fine, soldier. Just needs a squeezing out.’
‘Squeezing out?’
She turned round and glared at the squad healer. ‘I seen livers before, Cutter. Big sponges full of blood. Tumbles out when you cut someone open.’
‘Sounds more like a lung, Sergeant. The liver’s this flat thing, muddy brown or purple-’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said, wheeling back to stare at Urb. ‘If the first one dies the other one kicks in. I’m fine. Well,’ she added with a loud sigh which seemed to make Urb reel back a step, ‘I’m in the best of moods, my friends. The best of moods. And now we’re all together, so let’s march because I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to march somewhere.’ She smiled over at her corporal. ‘What say you, Touchy Brethless?’
‘Sounds good, Sergeant.
‘Brilliant plan, Sergeant.’
‘Why do you always do that, Corporal?’
‘Do what?
‘Do what?’
‘Look, Baldy’s the one who’s half deaf-’
‘I’m not half deaf any more, Sergeant.’
‘You’re not? So who here is half deaf?’
‘Nobody, Sergeant.’
‘No need to shout. Baldy can hear you and if he can’t then we should’ve left him on the boat, along with that tall one there with the arrow in his skull, because neither one’s no good to us. We’re looking for grey-skinned murderers and they’re hiding in these trees. Behind them, I mean. If they were in them, it’d hurt. So we need to start looking behind all these trees. But first, collect us a cask here, one each now, and then we can get going.
‘What’re you all staring at? I’m the one giving the orders and I got me a new sword which will make chopping off one of these here tits a whole lot easier. Get moving, everyone, we got us a war to fight. Behind those trees.’
Crouched before him, Gullstream had the furtive look of a weasel in a chicken coop. He wiped his runny nose with the back of one forearm, squinted, then said, ‘Everyone accounted for, sir.’
Fist Keneb nodded, then turned as someone slid loudly down the beach ridge. ‘Quiet over there. All right, Gullstream, find the captain and send her to me.’
‘Aye, sir.’
The soldiers were feeling exposed, which was understandable. It was one thing for a squad or two to scout ahead of a column-at least retreat was possible in the traditional sense. Here, if they got into trouble, their only way out was to scatter. As the commander of what would be a prolonged, chaotic engagement, Keneb was worried. His attack unit of six squads would be the hardest one to hide-the mages with him were the weakest of the lot, for the simple reason that his platoon would be holding back on their inland march, with the primary objective being avoiding any contact. As for the rest of his legion, it was now scattered up and down thirty leagues of coastline. Moving in small units of a dozen or so soldiers and about to begin a covert campaign that might last months.
There had been profound changes to the Fourteenth Army since Malaz City. A kind of standardization had been imposed on the scores of wizards, shamans, conjurers and casters in the legions, with the intent of establishing sorcery as the principal means of communication. And, for the squad mages among the marines-a force that now had as many heavy infantry as sappers-certain rituals of Mockra were now universally known. Illusions to affect camouflage, to swallow sound, confuse scent.
And all of this told Keneb one thing. She knew. From the very beginning. She knew where we were going, and she planned for it. Once again there had been no consultation among the officers. The Adjunct’s only meetings were with that Meckros blacksmith and the Tiste Andii from Drift Avalii. What could they have told her about this land? None of them are even from here.
He preferred to assume it was a simple stroke of fortune when the fleet had sighted two Edur ships that had been separated from the others following a storm. Too damaged to flee, they had been taken by the marines. Not easily-these Tiste Edur were fierce when cornered, even when half-starved and dying of thirst. Officers had been captured, but only after every other damned warrior had been cut down.
The interrogation of those Edur officers had been bloody. Yet, for all the information they provided, it had been the ship’s logs and charts that had proved the most useful for this strange campaign. Ah, ‘strange’ is too mild a word for this. True, the Tiste Edur fleets clashed with our empire-or what used to be our empire-and they’d conducted wholesale slaughter of peoples under our nominal protection. But isn’t all that Laseen’s problem?
The Adjunct would not relinquish her title, either. Adjunct to whom? The woman who had done all she could to try to murder her? What had happened that night up in Mock’s Hold, anyway? The only other witnesses beyond Tavore and the Empress herself were dead. T’amber. Kalam Mekhar-gods, that’s a loss that will haunt us. Keneb wondered then-and wondered still-if the entire debacle at Malaz City had not been planned out between Laseen and her cherished Adjunct. Each time this suspicion whispered through him, the same objections arose in his mind. She would not have agreed to T’amber’s murder. And Tavore damned near died at the harbour front. And what about Kalam? Besides, even Tavore Paran was not cold enough to see the sacrifice of the Wickans, all to feed some damned lie. Was she?
But Laseen’s done this before. With Dujek Onearm and the Host. And that time, the deal involved the annihilation of the Bridgeburners-at least that’s how it looks. So… why not?
What would have happened ifwe’djust marched into the city? Killing every damned fool who got in our way? If we’d gone in strength with Tavore up to Mock’s Hold?
Civil war. He knew that to be the answer to those questions. Nor could he see a way out, even after months and months of second-guessing.
No wonder, then, that all of this was eating at Keneb’s guts, and he knew he was not alone in that. Blistig believed in nothing any more, beginning with himself. His eyes seemed to reflect some spectre of the future that only he could see. He walked as a man already dead-the body refusing what the mind knew to be an irrevocable truth. And they’d lost Tene Baralta and his Red Blades, although perhaps that was not quite as tragic. Well, come to think on it, Tavore’s inner circle is pretty much gone. Carved out. Hood knows I never belonged there anyway-which is why I’m here, in this damned dripping swamp of a forest.
‘We’re assembled and waiting, Fist.’
Blinking, Keneb saw that his captain had arrived. Standing-waiting-how long? He squinted up at the greying sky. Shit. ‘Very well, we’ll head inland until we find some dry ground.’
‘Aye.’
‘Oh, Captain, have you selected out the mage you want?’
Faradan Sort’s eyes narrowed briefly, and in the colourless light the planes of her hard face looked more angular than ever. She sighed and said, ‘I believe so, Fist. From Sergeant Gripe’s squad. Beak.’
‘Him? Are you sure?’
She shrugged. ‘Nobody likes him, so you’ll not rue the loss.’
Keneb felt a flicker of irritation. In a low tone he said, ‘Your task is not meant to be a suicide mission, Captain. I am not entirely convinced this sorcerous communication system is going to work. And once the squads start losing mages, it will all fall apart. You will probably become the only link among all the units-’
‘Once we find some horses,’ she cut in.
‘Correct.’
He watched as she studied him for a long moment, then she said, ‘Beak has tracking skills, Fist. Of a sort. He says he can smell magic, which will help in finding our soldiers.’
‘Very good. Now, it’s time to move inland, Captain.’
‘Aye, Fist.’
A short time later, the forty-odd soldiers of Keneb’s command platoon were fighting their way through a bog of fetid, black water, as the day’s heat grew. Insects swarmed in hungry clouds. Few words were exchanged.
None of us are sure of this, are we? Find the Tiste Edur-this land’s oppressors-and cut them down. Free the Letherii to rebel. Aye, foment a civil war, the very thing we fled the Malazan Empire to avoid.
Odd, isn’t it, how we now deliver upon another nation what we would not have done to ourselves.
About as much moral high ground as this damned swamp. No, we’re not happy, Adjunct. Not happy at all.
Beak didn’t know much about any of this. In fact, he would be the first to admit he didn’t know much about anything at all, except maybe weaving sorcery. The one thing he knew for certain, however, was that no-one liked him.
Getting tied to the belt of this scary captain woman would probably turn out to be a bad idea. She reminded him of his mother, looks-wise, which should have killed quick any thoughts of the lustful kind. Should have, but didn’t, which he found a little disturbing if he thought about it, which he didn’t. Much. Unlike his mother, anyway, she wasn’t the type to browbeat him at every turn, and that was refreshing.
‘I was born a stupid boy to very rich noble-born parents.’ Usually the first words he uttered to everyone he met. The next ones were: That’s why I became a soldier, so’s I could be with my own kind.’ Conversations usually died away shortly after that, which made Beak sad.
He would have liked to talk with the other squad mages, but even there it seemed he couldn’t quite get across his deep-in-the-bone love of magic. ‘Mystery,’ he’d say, nodding and nodding, ‘mystery, right? And poetry. That’s sorcery. Mystery and poetry, which is what my mother used to say to my brother when she crawled into his bed on the nights Father was somewhere else. “We’re living in mystery and poetry, my dear one,” she’d say-I’d pretend I was asleep, since once I sat up and she beat me real bad. Normally she never did that, with her fists I mean. Most of my tutors did that, so she wouldn’t have to. But Isat up and that made her mad. The House healer said I almost died that night, and that’s how I learned about poetry.’
The wonder that was sorcery was his greatest love, maybe his only one, so far, though he was sure he’d meet his perfect mate one day. A pretty woman as stupid as he was. In any case, the other mages usually just stared at him while he babbled on, which was what he did when getting nervous. On and on. Sometimes a mage would just up and hug him, then walk away. Once, a wizard he was talking to just started crying. That had frightened Beak.
The captain’s interview of the mages in the platoon had ended with him, second in line.
‘Where are you from, Beak, to have you so convinced you’re stupid?’..
He wasn’t sure what that question meant, but he did try to answer. ‘I was born in the great city of Quon on Quon Tali in the Malazan Empire, which is an empire ruled by a little Empress and is the most civilized place in the world. All my tutors called me stupid and they should know. Nobody didn’t agree with them, either.’
‘So who taught you about magic?’
‘We had a Seti witch in charge of the stables. In the country estate. She said that for me sorcery was the lone candle in the darkness. The lone candle in the darkness. She said my brain had put out all the other candles, so this one would shine brighter and brighter. So she showed me magic, first the Seti way, which she knew best. But later, she always found other servants, other people who knew the other kinds. Warrens. That’s what they’re called. Different coloured candles for each and every one of them. Grey for Mockra, green for Ruse, white for Hood, yellow for Thyr, blue for-’
‘You know how to use Mockra?’
‘Yes. Want me to show you?’
‘Not now. I need you to come with me-I am detaching you from your squad, Beak.’
‘All right.*
‘You and I, we are going to travel together, away from everyone else. We’re going to ride from unit to unit, as best we can.’
‘Ride, on horses?’
‘Do you know how?’
‘Quon horses are the finest horses in the world. We bred them. It was almost another candle in my head. But the witch said it was different, since I’d been born into it and riding was in my bones like writing in black ink.’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to find the other squads, even when they’re using sorcery to hide themselves?’
‘Find them? Of course. I smell magic. My candle flickers, then leans this way and whatever way the magic’s coming from.’
‘All right, Beak, you are now attached to Captain Faradan Sort. I’ve chosen you, over all the others.’
All right.’
‘Grab your gear and follow me.’
‘How close?’
‘Like you were tied to my sword-belt, Beak. Oh, and how old are you, by the way?’
‘I’ve lost count. I was thirty but that was six years ago so I don’t know any more.’
‘The warrens, Beak-how many candles do you know about?’
‘Oh, lots. All of them.’
‘All of them.’
‘We had a half-Fenn blacksmith for my last two years and he once asked me to list them, so I did, then he said that was all of them. He said: “That’s all of them, Beak.”‘
‘What else did he say?’
‘Nothing much, only he made me this knife.’ Beak tapped the large weapon at his hip. ‘Then he told me to run away from home. Join the Malazan Army, so I wouldn’t get beaten any more for being stupid. I was one year less than thirty when I did that, just like he told me to, and I haven’t been beaten since. Nobody likes me but they don’t hurt me. I didn’t know the army would be so lonely.’
She was studying him the way most people did, then she asked, ‘Beak, did you never use your sorcery to defend yourself, or fight back?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever seen your parents or brother since?’
‘My brother killed himself and my parents are dead-they died the night I left. So did the tutors.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Beak admitted. ‘Only, I showed them my candle.’
‘Have you done that since, Beak? Showed your candle?’
‘Not all of it, not all the light, no. The blacksmith told me not to, unless I had no choice.’
‘Like that last night with your family and tutors.’
‘Like that night, yes. They’d had the blacksmith whipped and driven off, you see, for giving me this knife. And then they tried to take it away from me. And all at once, I had no choice.’
So she said they were going away from the others, but here they were, trudging along with the rest, and the insects kept biting him, especially on the back of his neck, and getting stuck in his ears and up his nose, and he realized that he didn’t understand anything.
But she was right there, right at his side.
The platoon reached a kind of island in the swamp, moated in black water. It was circular, and as they scrambled onto it Beak saw moss-covered rubble.
‘Was a building here,’ one of the soldiers said.
‘Jaghut,’ Beak called out, suddenly excited. ‘Omtose Phellack. No flame, though, just the smell of tallow. The magic’s all drained away and that’s what made this swamp, but we can’t stay here, because there’s broken bodies under the rocks and those ghosts are hungry.’
They were all staring at him. He ducked his head. ‘Sorry.’
But Captain Faradan Sort laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘No need, Beak. These bodies-Jaghut?’
‘No. Forkrul Assail and Tiste Liosan. They fought on the ruins. During what they called the Just Wars. Here, it was only a skirmish, but nobody survived. They killed each other, and the last warrior standing had a hole in her throat and she bled out right where the Fist is standing. She was Forkrul Assail, and her last thought was about how victory proved they were right and the enemy was wrong. Then she died.’
‘It’s the only dry land anywhere in sight,’ Fist Keneb said. ‘Can any mage here banish the ghosts? No? Hood’s breath. Beak, what are they capable of doing to us anyway?’
‘They’ll eat into our brains and make us think terrible things, so that we all end up killing each other. That’s the thing with the Just Wars-they never end and never will because Justice is a weak god with too many names. The Liosan called it Serkanos and the Assail called it Rynthan. Anyway, no matter what language it spoke, its followers could not understand it. A mystery language, which is why it has no power because all its followers believe the wrong things-things they just make up and nobody can agree and that’s why the wars never end.’ Beak paused, looking around at the blank faces, then he shrugged. ‘I don’t know, maybe if I talk to them. Summon one and we can talk to it.’
‘I think not, Beak,’ the Fist said. ‘On your feet, soldiers, we’re moving on.’
No-one complained.
Faradan Sort drew Beak to one side. ‘We’re leaving them now,’ she said. ‘Which direction do you think will get us out of this the quickest?’
Beak pointed north.
‘How far?’
‘A thousand paces. That’s where the edge of the old Omtose Phellack is.’
She watched Keneb and his squads move down from the island, splashing their way further inland, due west. ‘How long before they’re out of this heading in that direction-heading west, I mean?’
‘Maybe twelve hundred paces, if they stay out of the river.’
She grunted. ‘Two hundred extra steps won’t kill them. All right, Beak, north it is. Lead on.’
Aye, Captain. We can use the old walkway.’
She laughed then. Beak had no idea why.
There was a sound in war that came during sieges, moments before an assault on the walls. The massed onagers, ballistae and catapults were let loose in a single salvo. The huge missiles striking the stone walls, the fortifications and the buildings raised a chaotic chorus of exploding stone and brick, shattered tiles and collapsing rooftops. The air itself seemed to shiver, as if recoiling from the violence.
Sergeant Cord stood on the promontory, leaning into the fierce, icy wind, and thought of that sound as he stared across at the churning bergs of ice warring across the strait. Like a city tumbling down, enormous sections looming over where Fent Reach used to be were splitting away, in momentary silence, until the waves of concussion rolled over the choppy waves of the sea, arriving in thunder. Roiling silver clouds, gouts of foamy water-
A mountain range in its death-throes,’ muttered Ebron at his side.
‘War machines pounding a city wall,’ Cord countered.
‘A frozen storm,’ said Limp behind them.
‘You all have it wrong,’ interjected Crump through chattering teeth. ‘It’s like big pieces of ice… falling down.’
‘That’s… simply stunning, Crump,’ said Corporal Shard. ‘You’re a Hood-damned poet. I cannot believe the Mott Irregulars ever let you get away. No, truly, Crump. I cannot believe it.’
‘Well, it’s not like they had any choice,’ the tall, knock-kneed sapper said, rubbing vigorously at both sides of his jaw before adding, ‘I mean, I left when no-one was looking. I used a fish spine to pick the manacles-you can’t arrest a High Marshal anyhow. I kept telling them. You can’t. It’s not allowed.’
Cord turned to his corporal. ‘Any better luck at talking to your sister? Is she getting tired holding all this back? We can’t tell. Widdershins doesn’t even know how she’s doing it in the first place, so he can’t help.’
‘Got no answers for you, Sergeant. She doesn’t talk to me either. I don’t know-she doesn’t look tired, but she hardly sleeps any more anyway. There’s not much I recognize in Sinn these days. Not since Y’Ghatan.’
Cord thought about this for a time, then he nodded. ‘I’m sending Widdershins back. The Adjunct should be landing in the Fort by now.’
‘She has,’ said Ebron, pulling at his nose as if to confirm it hadn’t frozen off. Like Widdershins, the squad mage had no idea how Sinn was managing to fend off mountains of ice. A bad jolt to his confidence, and it showed. ‘The harbour’s blocked, the thug in charge is contained. Everything is going as planned.’
A grunt from Limp. ‘Glad you’re not the superstitious type, Ebron. As for me, I’m getting down off this spine before I slip and blow a knee.’
Shard laughed. ‘You’re just about due, Limp.’
‘Thanks, Corporal. I really do appreciate your concern.’
‘Concern is right. I got five imperials on you living up to your name before the month’s out.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Shard,’ Cord said after they’d watched-with some amusement-Limp gingerly retreat from the promontory, ‘where is Sinn now?’
‘In that old lighthouse,’ the corporal replied.
‘All right. Let’s get under some cover ourselves-there’s more freezing rain on the way.’
‘That’s just it,’ Ebron said in sudden anger. ‘She’s not just holding the ice back, Sergeant. She’s killing it. And the water’s rising and rising fast.’
‘Thought it was all dying anyway’
‘Aye, Sergeant. But she’s quickened that up-she just took apart that Omtose Phellack like reeds from a broken basket-but she didn’t throw ‘era away, no, she’s weaving something else.’
Cord glared at his mage. ‘Sinn ain’t the only one not talking. What do you mean by “something else”?’
‘I don’t know! Hood’s balls, I don’t!’
‘There’s no baskets over there,’ Crump said. ‘Not that I can see. Marsh pigs, you got good eyes, Ebron. Even when
I squint with one eye, I don’t see-’
‘That’s enough, Sapper,’ Cord cut in. He studied Ebron for a moment longer, then turned away. ‘Come on, I got a block of ice between my legs and that’s the warmest part of me.’
They headed down towards the fisher’s shack they used as their base.
‘You should get rid of it, Sergeant,’ Crump said.
‘What?’
‘That block of ice. Or use your hands, at least.’
‘Thanks, Crump, but I ain’t that desperate yet.’
It had been a comfortable life, all things considered. True,
Malaz City was hardly a jewel of the empire, but at least it wasn’t likely to fall apart and sink in a storm. And he’d had no real complaints about the company he kept. Coop’s had its assortment of fools, enough to make Withal feel as if he belonged.
Braven Tooth. Temper. Banaschar-and at least Banaschar was here, the one familiar face beyond a trio of Nachts and, of course, his wife. Of course. Her. And though an Elder God had told him to wait, the Meckros blacksmith would have been content to see that waiting last for ever. Damn the gods, anyway, with their constant meddling, they way they just use us. As they like.
Even after what had to be a year spent on the same ship as the Adjunct, Withal could not claim to know her. True, there had been that prolonged period of grief-Tavore’s lover had been killed in Malaz City, he’d been told-and the Adjunct had seemed, for a time, like a woman more dead than alive.
If she was now back to herself, then, well, her self wasn’t much.
The gods didn’t care. They’d decided to use her as much as they had used him. He could see it, that bleak awareness in her unremarkable eyes. And if she had decided to stand against them, then she stood alone.
I would never have the courage for that. Not even close. But maybe, to do what she’s doing, she has to make herself less than human. More than human? Choosing to be less to be more, perhaps. So many here might see her as surrounded by allies. Allies such as Withal himself, Banaschar, Sandalath, Sinn and Keneb. But he knew better. We all watch. Waiting. Wondering.
Undecided.
Is this what you wanted, Mael? To deliver me to her? Yes, she was who I was waiting for.
Leading, inevitably, to that most perplexing question: But why me?
True, he could tell her of the sword. His sword. The tool he had hammered and pounded into life for the Crippled God. But there was no answering that weapon.
Yet the Adjunct was undeterred. Choosing a war not even her soldiers wanted. With the aim of bringing down an empire. And the Emperor who held that sword in his hands. An Emperor driven mad by his own power. Another tool of the gods.
It was hard to feel easy about all this. Hard to find any confidence in the Adjunct’s bold decision. The marines had been flung onto the Letherii shore, not a single landing en masse, in strength, but one scattered, clandestine, at night. Then, as if to defy the tactic, the transports had been set aflame.
An announcement to be sure.
We are here. Find us, if you dare. But be assured, in time we will find you.
While most of another legion remained in ships well off the Letherii coast. And the Adjunct alone knew where the Khundryl had gone. And most of the Perish.
‘You have taken to brooding, husband.’
Withal slowly lifted his head and regarded the onyx-skinned woman sitting opposite him in the cabin. ‘I am a man of deep thoughts,’ he said.
You’re a lazy toad trapped in a pit of self-obsession.’
‘That, too.’
‘We will soon be ashore. I would have thought you’d be eager at the gunnel, given all your groaning and moaning. Mother Dark knows, I would never have known you for a Meckros with your abiding hatred of the sea.’
‘Abiding hatred, is it? No, more like… frustration.’ He lifted his huge hands. ‘Repairing ships is a speciality. But it’s not mine. I need to be back doing what I do best, wife.’
‘Horseshoes?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Shield-rims? Dagger-hilts? Swords?’
‘If need be.’
‘Armies always drag smiths with them.’
‘Not my speciality.’
‘Rubbish. You can fold iron into a blade as well as any weaponsmith.’
‘Seen plenty of ‘em, have you?’
‘With a life as long as mine has been, I’ve seen too much of everything. Now, our young miserable charges are probably down in the hold again. Will you get them or will I?’
‘Is it truly time to leave?’
‘I think the Adjunct is already off.’
‘You go. They still make my skin crawl.’
She rose. ‘You lack sympathy, which is characteristic of self-obsession. These Tiste Andii are young, Withal. Abandoned first by Anomander Rake. Then by Andarist. Brothers and sisters fallen in pointless battle. Too many losses-they are caught in the fragility of the world, in the despair it delivers to their souls.’
‘Privilege of the young, to wallow in world-weary cynicism.’
‘Unlike your deep thoughts.’
‘Completely unlike my deep thoughts, Sand.’
‘You think they have not earned that privilege?’
He could sense her growing ire. She was, after all, no less Tiste Andii than they were. Some things needed steering around. Volcanic island. Floating mountain of ice. Sea of fire. And Sandahth Drukorlat’s list of sensitivities. ‘I suppose they have,’ he replied carefully. ‘But since when was cynicism a virtue? Besides, it gets damned tiring.’
‘No argument there,’ she said in a deadly tone, then turned and marched out.
‘Brooding’s different,’ he muttered to the empty chair across from him. ‘Could be any subject, for one thing. A subject not at all cynical. Like the meddling of the gods-no, all right, not like that one. Smithing, yes. Horseshoes. Nothing cynical about horseshoes… I don’t think. Sure. Keeping horses comfortable. So they can gallop into battle and die horribly.’ He fell silent. Scowling.
Phaed’s flat, heart-shaped face was the colour of smudged slate, a hue unfortunate in its lifelessness. Her eyes were flat, except when filled with venom, which they were now as they rested on Sandalath Drukorlat’s back as the older woman spoke to the others.
Nimander Golit could see the young woman he called his sister from the corner of his eye, and he wondered yet again at the source of Phaed’s unquenchable malice, which had been there, as far as he could recall, from her very earliest days. Empathy did not exist within her, and in its absence something cold now thrived, promising a kind of brutal glee at every victory, real or imagined, obvious or subtle.
There was nothing easy in this young, beautiful woman. It began with the very first impression a stranger had upon seeing her, a kind of natural glamour that could take one’s breath away. The perfection of art, the wordless language of the romantic.
This initial moment was short-lived. It usually died following the first polite query, which Phaed invariably met with cold silence. A silence that transformed that wordless language, dispelling all notions of romance, and filling the vast, prolonged absence of decorum with bald contempt.
Spite was reserved for those who saw her truly, and it was in these instances that Nimander felt a chill of premonition, for he knew that Phaed was capable of murder. Woe to the sharp observer who saw, unflinchingly, through to her soul-to that trembling knot of darkness veined with unimaginable fears-then chose to disguise nothing of that awareness.
Nimander had long since learned to affect a kind of innocence when with Phaed, quick with a relaxed smile which seemed to put her at ease. It was at these moments, alas, when she was wont to confide her cruel sentiments, whispering elaborate schemes of vengeance against a host of slights.
Sandalath Drukorlat was nothing if not perceptive, which was hardly surprising. She had lived centuries upon centuries. She had seen all manner of creatures, from the honourable to the demonic. It had not taken her long to decide towards which end of the spectrum Phaed belonged. She had answered cold regard with her own; the contempt flung her way was like pebbles thrown at a warrior’s shield, raising not even a scratch. And, most cutting riposte of all, she had displayed amusement at Phaed’s mute histrionics, even unto overt mockery. These, then, were the deep wounds suppurating in Phaed’s soul, delivered by the woman who now stood as a surrogate mother to them all.
And now, Nimander knew, heart-faced Phaed was planning matricide.
He admitted to his own doldrums-long periods of flat indifference-as if none of this was in fact worth thinking about. He had his private host of demons, after all, none of which seemed inclined to simply fade away. Unperturbed by the occasional neglect, they played on in their dark games, and the modest hoard of wealth that made up Nimander’s life went back and forth, until the scales spun without surcease. Clashing discord and chaos to mark the triumphant cries, the hissed curses, the careless scattering of coin. He often felt numbed, deafened.
It may have been that these were the traits of the Tiste Andii. Introverts devoid of introspection. Darkness in the blood. Chimerae, even unto ourselves. He’d wanted to care about the throne they had been defending, the one that Andarist died for, and he had led his charges into that savage battle without hesitation. Perhaps, even, with true eagerness.
Rush to death. The longer one lives, the less valued is that life. Why is that?
But that would be introspection, wouldn’t it? Too trying a task, pursuing such questions. Easier to simply follow the commands of others. Another trait of his kind, this comfort in following? Yet who stood among the Tiste Andii as symbols of respect and awe? Not young warriors like Nimander Golit. Not wicked Phaed and her vile ambitions.
Anomander Rake, who walked away. Andarist, his brother, who did not. Silchas Ruin-ah, such a family! Clearly unique among the brood of the Mother. They lived larger, then, in great drama. Lives tense and humming like bowstrings, the ferocity of truth in their every word, the hard, cruel exchanges that drove them apart when nothing else would. Not even Mother Dark’s turning away. Their early lives were poems of epic grandeur. And we? We are nothing. Softened, blunted, confused into obscurity. We have lost our simplicity, lost its purity. We are the Dark without mystery.
Sandalath Drukorlat-who had lived in those ancient times and must grieve in her soul for the fallen Tiste Andii-now turned about and with a gesture beckoned the motley survivors of Drift Avalii to follow. Onto the deck-‘you have hair, Nimander, the colour of starlight’-to look upon this squalid harbour town that would be their home for the next little eternity, to use Phaed’s hissing words.
‘It used to be a prison, this island. Full of rapists and murderers.’ A sudden look into his eyes, as if seeking something, then she gave him a fleeting smile that was little more than a showing of teeth and said, A good place for murder.’
Words that, millennia past, could have triggered a civil war or worse, the fury of Mother Dark herself. Words, then, that barely stirred the calm repose of Nimander’s indifference.
‘You have hair, Nimander, the colour of-’ But the past was dead. Drift Avalii. Our very own prison isle, where we learned about dying.
And the terrible price of following.
Where we learned that love does not belong in this world.