Open to them your hand to the shore, watch them walk into the sea.
Press upon them all they need, see them yearn for all they want.
Gift to them the calm pool of words, watch them draw the sword.
Bless upon them the satiation of peace, see them starve for war.
Grant them darkness and they will lust for light.
Deliver to them death and hear them beg for life.
Beget life and they will murder your kin.
Be as they are and they see you different.
Show wisdom and you are a fool.
The shore gives way to the sea. And the sea, my friends,
Does not dream of you.
– Shake Prayer
Another Hood-damned village, worse than mushrooms after a rain. Proof, if they’d needed it-and they didn’t-that they were drawing ever closer to the capital. Hamlets, villages, towns, traffic on the roads and cart trails, the thundering passage of horses, horns sounding in the distance like the howl of wolves closing in for the kill.
‘Best life there is,’ Fiddler muttered.
‘Sergeant?’
He rolled onto his back and studied his exhausted, cut-up, blood-stained, wild-eyed excuses for soldiers. What were they now? And what, as they stared back at him, were they seeing? Their last hope, and if that isn’t bad news…
He wondered if Gesler and his squad were still alive. They’d been neatly divided the night before by a clever thrust in strength of Edur, bristling with weapons and sniffing the air like the hounds they had become. Edur on their trail, delivering constant pressure, pushing them ever forward, into what Fiddler damn well knew was a wall of soldiers somewhere ahead-no slipping past when that time came. No squeezing north or south either-the Edur bands filled the north a dozen to a copse and not too far away on the south was the wide Lether River grinning like the sun’s own smile. Finally, aye, someone on the other side had got clever, had made the necessary adjustments, had turned this entire invasion into a vast funnel about to drive the Malazans into a meat-grinder.
Well, no fun lasts for ever. After Gesler and his Fifth had been pushed away, there had been sounds of fighting somewhere in that direction. And Fiddler had faced the hard choice between leading his handful of soldiers into a flanking charge to break through and relieve the poor bastards, or staying quiet and hurrying on, east on a southerly tack, right into that waiting maw.
The splitting cracks of sharpers had decided him-suicide running into that, since those sharpers tended to fly every which way, and they meant that Gesler and his squad were running, carving a path through the enemy, and Fiddler and his squad might simply end up stumbling into their wake, in the sudden midst of scores of enraged Edur.
So I left ‘em to it. And the detonations died away, but the screams continued, Hood take me.
Sprawled in the high grasses at the edge of the treeline, his squad. They stank. The glory of the Bonehunters, this taking to the grisliest meaning of that name. Koryk’s curse, aye. Who else? Severed fingers, ears, pierced through and dangling from belts, harness clasps, rawhide ties. His soldiers: one and all degraded into some ghastly blood-licking barely human savages. No real surprise there. It was one thing to go covert-as marines this was, after all, precisely what they had been trained to do. But it had gone on too long, without relief, with the only end in sight nothing other than Hood’s own gate. Fingers and ears, except for Smiles, who’d added to the mix with that which only males could provide. ‘M31 blecker worms,’ she’d said, referring to some offshore mud-dwelling worm native to the Kanese coast. ‘And just like the worms, they start out purple and blue and then after a day or two in the sun they turn grey. Bleckers, Sergeant.’
Didn’t need to lose the path to lose theif minds, that much was obvious. Gods below, look at these fools-how in Hood’s name have we lasted this long?
They’d not seen the captain and her runt of a mage in some time, which didn’t bode well. Still, threads of brown telltale smoke drifting around here and there in the mornings, and the faint sounds of munitions at night. So, at least some of them were still alive. But even those signs were growing scarce, when they should have been, if anything, increasing as things got nastier.
We’ve run out. We’re used up. Bah, listen to me! Starting to sound like Cuttle there. ‘I’m ready to die now, Fid. Happy to, aye. Now that I seen-’
‘Enough of that,’ he snapped.
‘Sergeant?’
‘Stop asking me anything, Bottle. And stop looking at me like I’ve gone mad or something.’
‘You’d better not, Sergeant. Go mad, that is. You’re the only sane one left.’
‘Does that assessment include you?’
Bottle grimaced, then spat out another wad of the grass he’d taken to chewing. Reached for a fresh handful.
Aye, answer enough.
‘Almost dark,’ Fiddler said, eyeing once more the quaint village ahead. Crossroads, tavern and stable, a smithy down the main street, in front of a huge pile of tailings, and what seemed too many residences, rows of narrow-laned mews, each abode looking barely enough for a small family. Could be there was some other industry, a quarry or potter’s manufactory, somewhere on the other side of the village-he thought he could see a gravel road wending up a hill past the eastern edge.
Strangely quiet for dusk. Workers still chained to their workbenches? Maybe. But still, not even a damned dog in that street. ‘I don’t like the looks of this,’ he said. ‘You sure you smell nothing awry, Bottle?’
‘Nothing magical. Doesn’t mean there isn’t a hundred Edur crouched inside those houses, just waiting for us.’
‘So send in a squirrel or something, damn you.’
‘I’m looking, Sergeant, but if you keep interrupting me…’
‘Lord Hood, please sew up the mouths of mages, I implore you.’
‘Sergeant, I’m begging you. We’ve got six squads of Edur less than a league behind us, and I’m damned tired of dodging javelins. Let me concentrate.’
Aye, concentrate on this fist down your throat, y’damned rat’kisser. Oh, I’m way too tired, way too old. Maybe, if we get through this-hah!-I’ll just creep away, vanish into the streets of this Letheras. Retire. Take up fishing. Or maybe knitting. Funeral shawls. Bound to be a thriving enterprise for a while, I’d wager. Once the Adjunct arrives with the rest of us snarly losers and exacts a pleasant revenge for all us dead marines. No, stop thinking that way. We’re still alive.
‘Found a cat, Sergeant. Sleeping in the kitchen of that tavern. It’s having bad dreams.’
‘So become its worse nightmare, Bottle, and quick.’
Birds chirping in the trees behind them. Insects busy living and dying in the grasses around them. The extent of his world now, a tiresome travail punctuated by moments of profound terror. He itched with filth and could smell the stale stench of old fear, like redolent stains in the skin.
Who in Hood’s name are these damned Letherii anyway? So this damned empire with its Edur overlords scrapped with the Malazan Empire. Laseen’s problem, not ours. Damn you, Tavore, we get to this point and vengeance ain’t enough-
‘Got her,’ Bottle said. ‘Awake… stretching-yes, got to stretch, Sergeant, don’t ask me why. All right, three people in the kitchen, all sweating, all rolling their eyes-they look terrified, huddling that way. I hear sounds in the tavern. Someone’s singing…’
Fiddler waited for more.
And waited.
‘Bottle-’
‘Slipping into the tavern-ooh, a cockroach! Wait, no, stop playing with it-just eat the damned thing!’
‘Keep your voice down, Bottle!’
‘Done. Woah, crowded in here. That song… up onto the rail, and there-’ Bottle halted abruptly, then, swearing under his breath, he rose. Stood for a moment, then snorted and said, ‘Come on, Sergeant. We can just walk right on in.’
‘Marines holding the village? Spit Hood on a stake, yes!’
The others heard that and as one they were on their feet, crowding round in relief.
Fiddler stared at all the stupid grins and was suddenly sober again. ‘Look at you! A damned embarrassment!’
‘Sergeant.’ Bottle plucked at his arm. ‘Fid, trust me, no worries on that front.’
Hellian had forgotten which song she was singing. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what everyone else was singing, not that they were still singing, much. Though her corporal was somehow managing a double warble, stretching out some bizarre word in Old Cawn-foreigners shouldn’t sing, since how could people understand them so it could be a mean song, a nasty, insulting song about sergeants, all of which meant her corporal earned that punch in the head and at least the warbling half stopped.
A moment later she realized that the other half had died away, too. And that she herself was the only one still singing, although even to her it sounded like some foreign language was blubbering from her numbed lips-something about sergeants, maybe-well, she could just take out this knife and-
More soldiers suddenly, the tavern even more crowded. Unfamiliar faces that looked familiar and how could that be well it was it just was, so there. Damn, another sergeant-how many sergeants did she have to deal with here in this tavern? First there was Urb, who seemed to have been following her around for weeks now, and then Gesler, staggering in at noon with more wounded than walking. And now here was another one, with the reddish beard and that battered fiddle on his back and there he was, laughing and hugging Gesler like they was long lost brothers or lovers or something-everyone was too damned happy as far as she was concerned. Happier than her, which was of course the same thing.
Things had been better in the morning. Was it this day? Yesterday? No matter. They’d been magicked hard to find-was that Balgrid’s doing? Tavos Pond’s? And so the three squads of Edur had pretty much walked right on top of them. Which made the killing easier. That wonderful sound of crossbows letting loose. Thwok! Thwok! Thwokthwokthwok! And then the swordwork, the in-close stabbing and chopping and slashing then poking and prodding but nope ain’t nobody moving any more and that’s a relief and being relieved was the happiest feeling.
Until it made you depressed. Standing around surrounded by dead people did that on occasion. The blood on the sword in your hand. The grunt twist and pull of removing quarrels from stubborn muscle, bone and organs. All the flies showing up like they was gathered on a nearby branch just waiting. And the stink of all that stuff poured out of bodies.
Stinking almost as bad as what was on all these marines. Who’d started all that? The fingers and cocks and ears and stuff?
A sudden flood of guilt in Hellian. It was me! She stood, reeled, then looked over at the long table that served large parties of travellers, the table that went along the side wall opposite the bar. Edur heads were piled high on it, amidst plenty of buzzing, crawling flies and maggots. Too heavy on the belt-pulled Maybe’s breeches down, hah! No wait, I’m supposed to be feeling bad. There’s going to be trouble, because that’s what comes when you get nasty with the corpses of your enemies. It just… what’s the word? ‘Escalates!’
Faces turned, soldiers stared. Fiddler and Gesler who had been slapping each other on the back pulled apart and then walked over.
‘Hood’s pecker, Hellian,’ Fiddler said under his breath, ‘what happened to all the townfolk? As if I can’t guess,’ he added, glancing over at the heaped heads. ‘They’ve all run away.’
Urb had joined them and he said, ‘They were all those Indebted we heard about. Fifth, sixth generations. Working on blanks.’
‘Blanks?’ Gesler asked.
‘For weapons,’ Fiddler explained. ‘So, they were slaves, Urb?’
‘In everything but name,’ the big man replied, scratching at his beard from which dangled one severed finger, grey and black. ‘Under all those Edur heads is the local Factor’s head, some rich bastard in silks. We killed him in front of the Indebted and listened to them cheer. And then they cut off the poor fool’s head as a gift, since we come in with all these Edur ones. And then they looted what they could and headed out.’
Gesler’s brows had risen at all that. ‘So you’ve managed what the rest of us haven’t-arriving as damned liberators in this town.’
Hellian snorted. ‘We worked that out weeks back. Never mind the Lurrii soljers, since they’re all perfessionals and so’s they like things jus’ fine so’s they’s the one y’gotta kill no diff ‘rent from the Edur. No, y’go into the hamlets and villages and kill all the ‘ficials-’
‘The what?’ Gesler asked.
Urb said, ‘Officials. We kill the officials, Gesler. And anybody with money, and the advocates, too.’
‘The what?’
‘Legal types. Oh, and the money-lenders and debt-holders, and the record-keepers and toll-counters. We kill them all-’
‘Along with the soljers,’ Hellian added, nodding-and nodding, for some reason finding herself unable to stop. She kept nodding as she said, ‘An’ what happens then is simple. Looting, lotsa sex, then everybody skittles out, and we sleep in soft beds and drink an’ eat in the tavern an’ if the keepers hang round we pays for it all nice an’ honest-’
‘Keepers like the ones hiding in the kitchen?’
Hellian blinked. ‘Hiding? Oh, maybe we’ve gotten a little wild-
‘It’s the heads,’ Urb said, then he shrugged sheepishly. ‘We’re getting outa hand, Gesler, I think. Living like animals in the woods and the like-’
‘Like animals,’ Hellian agreed, still nodding. ‘In soft beds and lotsa food and drink an’ it’s not like we carry them heads on our belts or anything. We just leave ‘em in the taverns. Every village, right? Jus’ to let ‘em know we been through.’ Unaccountably dizzy, Hellian sat back down, then reached for the flagon of ale on the table-needing to twist Balgrid’s fingers from the handle and him fighting as if it was his flagon or something, the idiot. She swallowed a mouthful and leaned back-only it was a stool she was sitting on so there was no back to it, and now she was staring up at the ceiling and puddled whatever was soaking through her ragged shirt all along her back and faces were peering down at her. She glowered at the flagon still in her hand. ‘Did I spill? Did I? Did I spill, dammit?’
‘Not a drop,’ Fiddler said, shaking his head in wonder. This damned Sergeant Hellian, who by Urb’s account had crossed all the way from the coast in an inebriated haze-this soft-featured woman, soft just on the edge of dissolute, with the bright always wet lips-this Hellian had managed to succeed where every other squad-as far as Fiddler knew-had failed miserably. And since Urb was adamant on who was leading whom, it really had been her. This drunken, ferocious marine.
Leaving severed heads in every tavern, for Hood’s sake!
But she had cut loose the common people, all these serfs and slaves and Indebted, and had watched them dance off in joy and freedom. Our drunk liberator, our bloodthirsty goddess-what in Hood’s name do all those people think when they first see her? Endless rumours of a terrible invading army. Soldiers and Edur dying in ambushes, chaos on the roads and trails. Then she shows up, dragging heads in sacks, and her marines break down every door in town and drag out all the ones nobody else has any reason to like. And then? Why, the not-so-subtle cutting away of all burdens for all these poor folk. ‘Give us the bar for a couple nights and then we’ll just be on our way.
‘Oh, and if you run into any Edur in the woods, send somebody back to warn us, right?’
Was it any wonder that Hellian and Urb and their squads had marched so far ahead of the others-or so Captain Sort had complained-with hardly any losses among her marines? The drunk, bright-eyed woman with all the rounded excesses of a well-fed, never sober but still young harlot had somehow managed to co-opt all the local help they’d needed to stay alive.
In a strange kind of floating wonder, the near-euphoria of relief, exhaustion and plenty of admiration that certainly wasn’t innocent of sudden sexual desire-for a damned drunk-Fiddler found a table and moments later was joined by Gesler and Stormy, the latter arriving with a loaf of rye bread, a broached cask of ale and three dented pewter flagons with inscriptions on them.
‘Can almost read this,’ he said, squinting at the side of his cup. ‘Like old Ehrlii.’
‘Maker’s stamp?’ Gesler asked as he tore off a hunk of bread.
‘No. Maybe something like “Advocate of the Year”. Then a name. Could be Rizzin Purble. Or Wurble. Or Fizzin.’
‘Could be that’s the name of this village,’ Gesler suggested. ‘Fizzin Wurble.’
Stormy grunted, then nudged Fiddler. ‘Stop dreaming of her, Fid. She’s trouble and a lost cause too. Besides, it’s Urb who’s all dreamy ‘bout her and he looks too dangerous to mess with.’
Fiddler sighed. ‘Aye to all of that. It’s just been a long time, that’s all.’
‘We’ll get our rewards soon enough.’
He eyed Stormy for a moment, then glanced over to Gesler.
Who was scowling at his corporal. ‘You lost your mind, Stormy? The only rewards we’re going to reap are the crow feathers Hood hands out as we march through his gate. Sure, we’re drawing up here, gaining in strength as we do it, but those Edur on our trail will be doing the same, outnumbering us five, ten to one by the time we run out of open ground.’
Stormy waved a dismissive hand. ‘You do a count, Gesler? Look at Urb’s squad. At Hellian’s. Look at Fid’s and ours. We’re all damned near unscathed, given what we’ve been through. More living than dead in every squad here. So who’s to say the other squads aren’t in the same shape? We’re damn near at strength, and you couldn’t say that about the Letherii and the Edur, could you?’
‘There’s a whole lot more of them than us,’ Gesler pointed out as he collected the cask and began pouring the ale into the flagons.
‘Ain’t made that much difference, though. We bulled through that last ambush-’
‘And left the scene so cut up and bleeding a vole could’ve tracked us-’
‘Sharper scatter, is all-’
‘Mayfly’s back was a shredded mess-’
‘Armour took most of it-’
‘Armour she doesn’t have any more-’
‘You two are worse than married,’ Fiddler said, reaching for his ale.
‘All right,’ Koryk pronounced, ‘there’s no disagreement possible. Those bieckers of yours, Smiles, reek the worst of all. Worse than fingers, worse than ears, worse even than tongues. We’ve all voted. All us in the squad, and you’ve got to get rid of them.’
Smiles sneered. ‘You think I don’t know why you want me to toss ‘em, Koryk? It’s not the smell, oh no. It’s the sight of them, and the way that makes you squirm inside, makes your balls pull up and hide. That’s what this is all about. Pretty soon, none of us will be smelling much at all-everything’s drying out, wrinkling up-’
‘Enough,’ groaned Tarr.
Koryk glanced across at Bottle. The fool looked to be asleep, his face hanging slack. Well, fair enough. Without Bottle they’d never have come this far. Virtually unscathed at that. He tapped the finger bone strung round his neck-the bone from the pit outside what was left of Y’Ghatan. Always worth a touch or two with thoughts like those.
And he knew they were headed for trouble. They all knew, which was why they’d talk about anything else but that huge grisly beast crouched right there in the forefront of their thoughts. The one with dripping fangs and jagged talons and that smeared grin of knowing. Aye. He touched the bone again.
‘Come through not bad,’ Cuttle said, eyeing the other marines in the crowded main room. ‘Anybody here been thinking about how we’re going to besiege a city the size of Unta? We’re pretty much out of munitions-Fid’s got a cusser left and maybe I do, too, but that’s it. We can hardly try anything covert, since they know we’re coming-’
‘Magic, of course,’ Smiles said. ‘We’ll just walk right in.’
Koryk winced at this turn in the conversation. Besieging Letheras? And nobody standing ranks-deep in their way? Not likely. Besides, the Edur were pushing them right along, and where the marines ended up was not going to be a pleasure palace, now was it? Had Cuttle lost his mind? Or was this just his way of dealing with the death looming in all their minds?
Probably. The sapper had little or no imagination, and he was making his biggest leap possible all the way to a siege that was never going to happen and wouldn’t work anyway if it did, which it wouldn’t. But it gave Cuttle something to think about.
‘The sergeant will figure something out,’ Cuttle concluded suddenly, with a loud sigh, as he settled back in his chair.
Hah, yes, Fiddler, Lord of the Sappers. Hie and fall on your knees!
Bottle sat looking through the ever-sharp eyes of a cat. Perched on the ridge of the tavern roof, gaze fixing and tracking on birds whenever the mage’s concentration slipped-which was getting too often, but exhaustion did that, didn’t it?
But now, there was movement there, along the edge of the forest there-where the squad had been hiding not so long ago. And more, to the north of that. And there, an Edur scout, edging out from the south end, other side of the road. Sniffing the air as was their wont-no surprise, the Malazans carried a carrion reek with them everywhere they went these days.
Oh, they were cautious, weren’t they? They don’t want a real engagement. They just want us to bolt. Again. Once their strength’s up, they’ll show themselves more openly. Show their numbers, lances at the ready.
A little time yet, then. For the other marines to relax. But not too much, lest they all got so drunk they couldn’t stand, much less fight. Although, come to think on it, that Hellian seemed capable of fighting no matter how sodden she got-one of her corporals had talked about how she sobered up and turned into ice whenever the fighting started. Whenever orders needed delivering. That was a singular talent indeed. Her soldiers worshipped her. As did Urb and his squad. Worship all bound up with terror and probably more than a little lust, so a mixed-up kind of worship, which probably made it thick as armour and that was why so many were still alive.
Hellian, like a more modest version of, say, Coltaine. Or even Dujek during the Genabackan campaigns. Greymane in Korel. Prince K’azzfor the Crimson Guard-from what I’ve heard.
But not, alas, the Adjunct. And that’s too bad. That’s worse than too bad-
Twenty Tiste Edur visible now, all eyeing the village-ooh, look at that bird! No, that wasn’t them. That was the damned cat. He needed to focus.
More of the barbaric warriors appearing. Another twenty. And there, another group as big as the first two combined.
A third one, coming down from due north and maybe even a little easterly-
Bottle shook himself, sat up, blinked across at his fellow marines. ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘We got to run.’
‘How many?’ Koryk demanded.
Three hundred and climbing. ‘Too many-’
‘Bottle!’
‘Hundreds, damn you!’
He glared around the room, in the sudden silence following his scream. Well now, that sobered ‘em up.
Beak’s eyes felt full of sand. His tongue was thick in his mouth and he felt slightly nauseous. He wasn’t used to keeping a candle lit for so long, but there had been little choice. The Tiste Edur were everywhere now. He had been muffling the sounds of horse hoofs from their mounts, he had been blurring their passage to make them little more than deeper shadows amidst the dappled cascade beneath branches. And he had been reaching out, his every sense awakened to almost painful precision, to find these stealthy hunters as they closed in on their trail. On everyone’s trail. And to make matters worse, they were fighting in the same way as the Malazans-fast, vicious clashes, not even worrying about actually killing because wounding was better. Wounding slowed the marines down. Left blood trails. They cut then withdrew. Then did it all over again, later. Nights and into the days now, so there was no time to rest. Time only to… run.
And now he and the captain were riding in daylight, trying to find a way back to Fist Keneb and all the squads that had linked up with his company. Four hundred marines as of two days ago. Beak and the captain had pushed east in an effort to contact those squads that had moved faster and farther than all the others, but they had been driven back-too many Tiste Edur bands in between. He now knew that Faradan Sort feared those squads lost, if not dead already then as good as.
He was also pretty sure that this invasion was not quite going as planned. Something in the look in the captain’s dark eyes told him that it wasn’t just the two of them who kept stumbling into trouble. They’d found three squads, after all, that had been butchered-oh, they’d charged a high toll for the privilege, as Faradan Sort had said after wandering the glade with its heaps of corpses and studying the blood trails leading off into the woods. Beak could tell just by the silent howl of death roiling in the air, that cold fire that was the breath of every field of battle. A howl frozen like shock into the trees, the trunks, the branches and the leaves. And in the ground underfoot, oozing like sap, and Lily, his sweet bay, didn’t want to take a single step into that clearing and Beak knew why.
A high toll, yes, just like she’d said, although of course no real coins were paid. Just lives.
They worked their weary mounts up an embankment all overgrown with bushes, and Beak was forced to concentrate even harder to mute the sounds of scrabbling hoofs and snapping brush, and the candle in his head flared suddenly and he very nearly reeled from his saddle.
The captain’s hand reached across and steadied him. ‘Beak?’
‘It’s hot,’ he muttered. And now, all at once, he could suddenly see where all this was going, and what he would need to do.
The horses broke the contact between them as they struggled up the last of the ridge.
‘Hold,’ Faradan Sort murmured.
Yes. Beak sighed. ‘Just ahead, Captain. We found them.’
A score of trees had been felled and left to rot directly ahead, and on this side of that barrier was a scum-laden pool on which danced glittering insects. Two marines smeared in mud rose from the near side of the bank, crossbows at the ready.
The captain raised her right hand and made a sequence of gestures, and the crossbows swung away and they were waved forward.
There was a mage crouched in a hollow beneath one of the felled trees, and she gave Beak a nod that seemed a little nervous. He waved back as they reined in ten paces from the pool.
The mage called out from her cover: ‘Been expecting you two. Beak, you got a glow so bright it’s damned near blinding.’ Then she laughed. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not the kind the Edur can see, not even their warlocks. But I’d dampen it down some, Beak, lest you burn right up.’
The captain turned to him and nodded. ‘Rest now, Beak.’
Rest? No, there could be no rest. Not ever again. ‘Sir, there are hundreds of Edur coming. From the northwest-’
‘We know,’ the other mage said, clambering out like a toad at dusk. ‘We was just getting ready to pack our travelling trunks and the uniforms are pressed and the standards restitched in gold.’
‘Really?’
She sobered and there was a sudden soft look in her eyes, reminding Beak of that one nurse his mother had hired, the one who was then raped by his father and had to go away. ‘No, Beak, just havin’ fun.’
Too bad, he considered. He would like to have seen that gold thread.
They dismounted and walked their horses round one end of the felled trees, and there, before them, was the Fist’s encampment. ‘Hood’s mercy,’ Faradan Sort said, ‘there’s more.’
‘Six hundred and seventy-one, sir,’ Beak said. And like the mage had said, there were getting ready to leave, swarming like ants on a kicked mound. There had been wounded-lots of them-but the healers had done their work and all the blood smelled old and the smell of death stayed where it belonged, close to the dozen graves on the far side of the clearing.
‘Come along,’ said the captain as two soldiers arrived to take charge of the horses, and Beak followed her as she made her way to where stood Fist Keneb and Sergeant Thorn Tissy.
It felt strange to be walking after so long seated in those strange Letherii saddles, as if the ground was crumbling underfoot, and everything looked oddly fragile. Yes. My friends. All of them.
‘How bad?’ Keneb asked Faradan Sort.
‘We couldn’t reach them,’ she replied, ‘but there is still hope. Fist, Beak says we have to hurry.’
The Fist glanced at Beak and the young mage nearly wilted. Attention from important people always did that to him.
Keneb nodded, then sighed. ‘I want to keep waiting, in case…’ He shook his head. ‘Fair enough. It’s time to change tactics.’
‘Yes sir,’ said the captain.
‘We push hard. For the capital, and if we run into anything we can’t handle… we handle it.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Captain, gather ten squads with full complement of heavies. Take command of our rearguard.’
‘Yes sir.’ She turned and took Beak by the arm. ‘I want you on a stretcher, Beak,’ she said as she led him along. ‘Sleeping.’
‘I can’t, sir-’
‘You will.’
‘No, I really can’t. The candles, they won’t go out. Not any more. They won’t go out.’ Not ever, Captain, and it isn’t that I don’t love you because I do and I’d do anything you asked. But I just can’t and I can’t even explain. Only, it’s too late.
He wasn’t sure what she saw in his eyes, wasn’t sure how much of all that he didn’t say got heard anyway, but the grip of her hand on his arm loosened, became almost a caress, and she nodded and turned her head away. ‘All right, Beak. Help us guard Keneb’s back, then.’
‘Yes sir, I will. You just watch me, I will.’ He waited a moment, as they walked side by side through the camp, and then asked, ‘Sir, if there’s something we can’t handle how do we handle it anyway?’
She either grunted or laughed from the same place that grunts came from. ‘Sawtooth wedges and keep going, Beak. Throw back whatever is thrown at us. Keep going, until…’
‘Until what?’
‘It’s all right, Beak, to die alongside your comrades. It’s all right. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes sir, I do. It is all right, because they’re my friends.’
‘That’s right, Beak.’
And that’s why no-one needs to worry, Captain.
Keneb watched as his marines fell into formation. Fast march, now, as if these poor souls weren’t beat enough. But they couldn’t dart and hide any more. The enemy had turned the game round and they had the advantage in numbers and maybe, finally, they were also a match for the ferocity of his Malazans.,
It had been inevitable. No empire just rolls over, legs splaying. After enough pokes and jabs, it turns and snarls and then the fangs sink deep. And now it was his marines who were doing the bleeding. But not nearly as bad as I’d feared. Look at them, Keneb. Looking meaner than ever.
‘Fist,’ Thorn Tissy said beside him, ‘they’re ready for you.’
‘I see that, Sergeant.’
‘No sir. I meant, they’re ready.’
Keneb met the squat man’s dark, beady eyes, and wasn’t sure what he saw in them. Whatever it was, it burned bright.
‘Sir,’ Thorn Tissy said, ‘it’s what we’re meant for. All’-he waved one grimy hand-‘this. Trained to play more than one game, right? We stuck ‘em enough to get ‘em riled up and so here they are, all those damned Edur drawn right to us like we was a lodestone. Now we’re about to knock ‘em off balance all over again, and Hood take me, it’s got my blood up! Same for us all! So, please, sir, sound us the order to march.’
Keneb stared at the man a moment longer, then he nodded.
To the sound of laughter, Koryk barrelled into the three Edur warriors, his heavy longsword hammering aside two of the out-thrust spears jabbing for his midsection. With his left hand he caught the shaft of the third one and used it to pull himself forward. Edge of his blade into the face of the warrior on his right-not deep enough to cause serious damage, but enough to spray blinding blood. Against the one in the middle, Koryk dropped one shoulder and hit him hard in the centre of his chest-hard enough to lift the Edur from his feet and send him sprawling back. Still gripping the third spear, Koryk twisted the warrior round and drove the point of his sword into the Edur’s throat.
Koryk spun to slash at the first warrior, only to see her tumble back with a throwing knife skewering one eye socket. So he lunged after the middle Edur, sword chopping down in a frenzy until the Edur’s smashed-up arms-raised to fend off the attack-fell away, freeing the half-blood Seti to deliver a skull-crushing blow.
Then he whirled. ‘Will you in Hood’s name stop that laughing!’
But Smiles was on one knee, convulsing with hilarity even as she pulled out her throwing knife. ‘Gods! I can’t breathe! Wait-just wait-’
Snarling, Koryk turned to face the cloister again-these narrow-laned mews created perfect cul-de-sacs-lead them in at a run, flank out then turn and cut the bastards down. Even so, nobody had planned on making this ugly village the site of their last stand. Except maybe the Edur, who now entirely surrounded it and were working their way in, house by house, lane by lane.
Felt good kicking back, though, whenever they got too spread out in their eagerness to spill Malazan blood.
‘They stink at fighting in groups,’ Smiles said, coming up alongside him. She glanced up into his face and then burst out laughing again.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You! Them! The look in their eyes-the surprise, I mean, oh, gods of the deep! I can’t stop!’
‘You’d better,’ Koryk warned, shaking the blood from his sword. ‘I’m hearing movement-that lane mouth there-
come on.’
Three quarrels flitted out, two of them taking down onrushing Edur. Two lances arced in retaliation, both darting straight for Fiddler. And then Tarr’s huge shield shifted into their path, and the sergeant was pushed hard to one side-grunts from the corporal as both lances slammed solidly against the bronze-scaled face, one of them punching through a finger’s length to pierce Tarr’s upper arm. The corporal swore.
Fiddler ducked down behind the smithy’s quenching barrel as a third lance cracked into it. Water gushed out onto the ground.
The crossfire ambush then caught the half-dozen charging Edur unawares-quarrels sleeting out from the narrow alley mouths on both sides. Moments later all were down, dead or dying.
‘Pull back!’ Fiddler shouted, turning to exchange his unloaded crossbow for the loaded one Bottle now set into his hands.
Tarr covering the three of them, they retreated back through the smithy, across the dusty compound with its piled tailings and slag, through the kicked-down fence, and back towards the tavern.
Where, from the sounds, Stormy and his heavies were in a fight.
Motion on their flanks-the rest of the ambush converging. Cuttle, Corabb, Maybe, Gesler, Balgrid and Brethless. Reloading on the run.
‘Gesler! Stormy’s-’
‘I can hear it, Fid! Corabb-hand that damned crossbow over to Brethless-you’re useless with it. Join up with Tarr there and you two in first!’
‘I got my target!’ Corabb protested even as he gave one of Hellian’s corporals the heavy weapon.
‘By bouncing your quarrel off the cobbles and don’t tell me that was a planned shot!’
Corabb was already readying the Edur spear he had picked up.
Fiddler waved Tarr forward as soon as Corabb arrived. ‘Go, you two! Fast in and hard!’
Only by leaving his feet and throwing his entire weight on the shaft was the Edur able to drive the spear entirely through Stormy’s left shoulder. An act of extraordinary courage that was rewarded with a thumb in his left eye-that dug yet deeper, then deeper still. Shrieking, the warrior tried to jerk his head away, but the huge red-bearded corporal now clutched a handful of hair and was holding him tight.
With a still louder shriek and even greater courage, the Edur tore his head back, leaving Stormy with a handful of scalp and a thumb smeared in gel and blood.
‘Not so fast,’ the corporal said in a strangely matter-of-fact tone, as he lunged forward to grapple the Edur. Both went down onto the smeared floorboards of the tavern-and the impact pushed the spear in Stormy’s shoulder almost entirely through. Drawing his gutting knife, Stormy drove the blade into the warrior’s side, just beneath the ribcage, under the heart, then cut outward.
Blood gushed in a flood.
Staggering, slipping, Stormy managed to regain his feet-the spear falling from his back-and tottered until he came up against the table with its pile of severed Edur heads. He reached for one and threw it across the room, into the crowd of Edur pushing in through the doorway where Flashwit and Bowl had been holding position until a spear skewered Bowl through the man’s neck and someone knocked off Flashwit’s helm and laid open her head. She was lying on her back, not moving as the moccasin-clad feet of the Edur stamped all over her in the inward rush.
The head struck the lead warrior in the face, and he howled in shock and pain, reeling to one side.
Mayfly stumbled up to take position beside Stormy. Stabbed four times already, it was a wonder the heavy was still standing.
‘Don’t you die, woman,’ Stormy rumbled.
She set his sword into his hands. ‘Found this, Sergeant, and thought you might want it.’
There was no time to answer as the first three Edur reached them.
Emerging from the kitchen entrance-a kitchen now emptied of serving staff-Corabb saw that charge, and he leapt forward to take it from the flank.
And tripped headlong qver the body of the Edur that Stormy had just stabbed. His hands went forward, still holding the spear. The point drove through the right thigh of the nearest warrior, missing the bone, and plunged out the other side to stab into the next Edur’s left knee, the triangular head sliding under the patella and neatly separating the joint on its way through. Angling downward, the point sticking fast between two floorboards, until the far one sprang loose, in time to foul the steps of the third Edur, and that warrior seemed to simply throw himself onto Stormy’s out-thrust sword.
As Corabb landed amidst falling enemy, Tarr arrived, his shortsword hacking down here and there as he worked forward to plant himself in the path of the rest of the Edur.
Flashwit then stood up in their midst and she had a kethra knife in each hand.
Fiddler led the charge through the kitchen doorway, crossbow ready, to find Tarr cutting down the last standing Edur. The room was piled with bodies, only a few still moving, and crawling out from beneath two Edur corpses was Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas, coughing in all the blood that had spilled over him.
Brethless moved past to the window. ‘Sergeant! Another mob of’em!’
‘Crossbows up front!’ Fiddler snapped.
Hellian squinted across the street at the fancy house. The Factor’s house, she recalled. Had that look. Expensive, tasteless. She pointed with a dripping sword. ‘Over in there, that’s where we’ll make our stand.’
Urb grunted, then spat out a red stream-taken to chewing betel nut, maybe. The things some people would do to their bodies beggared belief. She drank down another mouthful of the local whatever that tasted like bamboo shoots some dog had pissed on, but what a kick. Then waved him forward.
And then the others, except for Lutes and Tavos Pond who’d both been cut to pieces trying to hold a flank at that alley mouth back there. ‘I’ll take up rearguard,’ she said by way of explanation as the six remaining marines staggered past. ‘In a smart line, now!’
Another mouthful. Just got worse, this stuff. Who would come up with a drink like that?
She set out. Was halfway there or maybe just halfway along when a hundred or so Tiste Edur appeared thirty or so paces down the main street. So she threw the clay bottle away and planted her feet to meet the charge. Was what rearguard did, right? Hold ‘em back.
The first row, about ten of them, halted and raised their lances.
‘Not fair!’ Hellian shouted, pulling her shield up and getting ready to duck behind it-oh, this wasn’t a shield at all. It was the lid of an ale cask, the kind with a handle. She stared at it. ‘Hey, I wasn’t issued this.’
Three straight days and nights on the run from the river bank and now the sounds of fighting somewhere ahead. Since he’d lost his corporal two nights past-the fool fell down an abandoned well, one moment there at his side, the next gone. Went through a net of roots at least most of the way, until he jammed his head and pop went the neck and wasn’t it funny how Hood never forgot since it’d been join the marines or dance the gibbet for the corporal and now the fool had done both. Since Badan Gruk lost his corporal, then, he now dragged Ruffle with him-not quite a promotion, Ruffle was not the promoting type, but she kept a cool eye when she wasn’t busy eating everything in sight.
And now it was with a wheeze that Ruffle settled down beside Badan Gruk, 5th Squad sergeant, 3rd Company, 8th Legion, and lifted her pale rounded face up to his with that cold grey regard. ‘We’re kind of tired, Sergeant.’
Badan Gruk was Dal Honese, but not from the north savanna tribes. He had been born in the south jungle, half a day from the coast. His skin was as black as a Tiste Andii’s, and the epicanthic folds of his eyes were so pronounced that little more than slits of white were visible: and he was not a man to smile much. He felt most comfortable on moonless nights, although Skim always complained about how their sergeant just damn disappeared, usually when he was needed the most.
But now here they were, in bright daylight, and oh how Badan Gruk wished for the gloom of the tropical rainforest of his homeland. ‘Stay here, Ruffle,’ he now said, then turned and scrabbled back to where Sergeant Primly crouched with the rest of the marines. Primly’s squad, the 10th, was also but one short, while the 4th was down two, including Sergeant Sinter and that sent yet another pang through Badan Gruk. She’d been from his own tribe, after all. Damn, she’d been the reason he’d joined up in the first place. Following Sinter had always been way too easy.
Drawing close, Badan Gruk waved Primly over and the Quon noble’s corporal, Hunt, tagged along. The three settled a short distance from the others. ‘So,’ Badan breathed, ‘do we go round this?’
Primly’s long ascetic face soured, which is what it always did whenever anyone spoke to him. Badan wasn’t too sure of the man’s history, beyond the obvious, which was that Primly had done something bad, once-bad enough to get him disowned and maybe even on the run. At least he’d left the highborn airs behind. To Badan’s whispered question, Corporal Hunt snorted, then looked away.
‘You’re here,’ Badan said to the Kartoolii, ‘so talk.’
Hunt shrugged. ‘We been running since the river, Sergeant. Ducking and dodging till all three of our mages are used up and worse than walking dead.’ He nodded northwards. ‘Those are marines up there, and they’re in a fight. We’re only down one heavy and one sapper-’
‘And a sergeant and a corporal,’ Badan added.
‘Seventeen of us, Sergeant. Now, I seen what your heavies can do, and both me and Sergeant Primly can tell you that Lookback, Drawfirst and Shoaly are easy matches to Reliko and Vastly Blank. And Honey’s still got three cussers and half again all the sharpers since Kisswhere left ‘em behind when she and Sinter went and-’
‘All right,’ Badan cut in, not wanting to hear again what had happened to Sinter and Kisswhere, since it had been Kisswhere who had been the reason for Sinter’s joining. Nothing good following a woman who was following another woman with worship in her eyes-even a sister-but that had been that and they were both gone now, weren’t they? ‘Primly?’
The Quon rubbed at what passed for a beard on his face-gods, showed just how young the poor bastard was-and cast a searching gaze back on the waiting soldiers. Then he smiled suddenly. ‘Look at Skulldeath, Badan. Here we got a soldier that Toothy himself named first day on Malaz Island, and I still don’t know-was it a joke? Skulldeath’s yet to draw a drop of blood, barring mosquitoes and that blood was his own. Besides, Badan Gruk, you’ve got what looks like some kind of Dal Honese grand council here and you moonless nightshades seem to put holy terror in the Edur, like you were ghosts or something and sometimes I start wondering myself, the way you all manage to vanish in the dark. In any case, there’s you, Nep Furrow, Reliko and Neller and Strap Mull and Mulvan Dreader’s halfway there besides, and, well, we’ve come to fight, haven’t we? So let’s fight.’
Maybe you came to fight, Primly. I’m just trying to stay alive. Badan Gruk studied the two men beside him for a moment longer, then he rose to his full height, coming to very nearly Primly’s shoulder, and drew out the two-handed sickle sword from its deer-hide harness on his broad back. Adjusting his grip on the ivory handle, he eyed the two thin otataral blades inset on both sides of the curved and carved tusk. Vethbela, the weapon was called in his own language, Bonekisser, the blades not deep enough to do more than touch the long bones of a normal warrior’s legs, since those femurs were prized trophies, to be polished and carved with scenes of the owner’s glorious death-and any warrior seeking the heart of a woman needed to place more than a few at the threshold of her family’s hut, as proof of his prowess and courage.
Never did manage to use this thing properly, did I? Not a single thigh bone to show Sinter. He nodded. ‘Time to collect some trophies, then.’
Fifteen paces away, Honey nudged Skim. ‘Hey, beloved, looks like we get to toss sharpers today.’
‘Stop calling me that,’ the other sapper replied in a bored tone, but she watched as Badan Gruk headed back up to where Ruffle hid, and she watched as Corporal Hunt went back down-trail to collect the 4th Squad’s corporal, Pravalak Rim, who had been guarding their butts with Shoaly and Drawfirst. And pretty soon something less than whispered was dancing through every soldier and she saw weapons being drawn, armour straps tightened, helms adjusted, and finally she grunted. ‘All right, Honey-Hood take me, how I hate saying that-looks like you’ve sniffed it just right-’
‘Just let me prove it-’
‘You’re never prying my legs apart, Honey. Why don’t you get that?’
‘What a miserable attitude,’ the lOth’s sapper complained as he loaded his crossbow. ‘Now Kisswhere, she was-’
‘So tired of your advances, Honey, that she went and blew herself up-and took her sister with her, too. And now here I am wishing I’d been with them in that scull.’ With that she rose and scrabbled over to Nep Furrow.
The old Dal Honese mage lifted one yellowy eye to squint at her, then both eyes opened wide when he saw the sharper she held in each hand. ‘Eggit’way fra meen, tit-woman!’
‘Relax,’ she said, ‘we’re heading into a fight. You got anything left in that bent reed of yours?’
‘Wha’?’
‘Magicks, Nep, magicks-comes from the bleckers in men. Every woman knows that,’ and she winked.
‘You teasin’ tit-woman you! Eggit’way fra meen!’
‘I’m not eggitin’ away from you, Nep, until you bless these two sharpers here.’
‘Bliss ‘em clay balls? Ya mad, tit-woman? Less time I done lhat-’
‘They blew up, aye. Sinter and Kisswhere. Into pieces but nice and quick, right? Listen, it’s my only way to escape Honey’s advances. No, seriously, I want one of your blissin’ curses or cursed blissin’s. Please, Nep-’
‘Eggit’way fra meen!’
Reliko, who was half a hand shorter even than his sergeant;ind therefore, by Toothy’s own assertion, the smallest heavy infantry soldier in the history of the Malazan Empire, grunted upright and drew out his shortsword as he swung his shield into position. He glanced over at Vastly Blank. ‘Time again.’
The oversized Seti warrior, still sitting on the bed of wet moss, looked up. ‘Huh?’
‘Fighting again.’
‘Where?’
‘Us, Vastly. Remember Y’Ghatan?’
‘No.’
‘Well, won’t be like Y’Ghatan. More like yesterday only harder. Remember yesterday?’
Vastly Blank stared a moment longer, then he laughed his slow ha ha ha laugh and said, ‘Yesterday! I remember yesterday!’
‘Then pick up your sword and wipe the mud off it, Vastly. And take your shield-no, not mine, yours, the one on your back. Yes, bring it round. That’s it-no, sword in the other hand. There, perfect. You ready?’
‘Who do I kill?’
‘I’ll show you soon enough.’
‘Good.’
‘Seti should never breed with bhederin, I think.’
‘What?’
‘A joke, Vastly.’
‘Oh. Ha ha ha! Ha.’
‘Let’s go join up with Lookback-we’ll be on point.’
‘Lookback’s on point?’
‘He’s always on point for this kind of thing, Vastly.’
‘Oh. Good.’
‘Drawfirst and Shoaly at our backs, right? Like yesterday.’
‘Right. Reliko, what happened yesterday?’
Strap Mull stepped close to Neiler and they both eyed their corporal, Pravalak Rim, who was just sending Drawfirst and Shoaly up to the other heavies.
The two soldiers spoke in their native Dal Honese. ‘Broke-hearted,’ Strap said.
‘Broker than broke,’ Neiler agreed.
‘Kisswhere, she was lovely’
‘Lovelier than lovely’
‘Like Badan says, though.’
‘Like he says, yes.’
‘And that’s that, is what he says.’
‘I know that, Strap, you don’t need to tell me anything. You think Letheras will be like Y’Ghatan? We didn’t do nothing in Y’Ghatan. And,’ Neiler suddenly added, as if struck by something, ‘we haven’t done nothing here either, have we? Nothing not yet, anyway. If it’s going to be like Y’Ghatan, though-’
‘We’re not even there yet,’ Strap Mull said. ‘Which sword you going to use?’
‘This one.’
‘The one with the broken handle?’
Neller looked down, frowned, then threw the weapon into the bushes and drew out another one. ‘This one. It’s Letherii, was on the cabin wall-’
‘I know. I gave it to you.’
‘You gave it to me because it howls like a wild woman every time I hit something with it.’
‘That’s right, Neller, and that’s why I asked what sword you were going to use.’
‘Now you know.’
‘Now I know so I’m stuffing my ears with moss.’
‘Thought they already were.’
‘I’m adding more. See?’
Corporal Pravalak Rim was a haunted man. Born in a northern province of Gris to poor farmers, he had seen nothing of the world for most of his life, until the day a marine recruiter had come through the nearby village on the very day Pravalak was there with his older brothers, all of whom sneered at the marine on their way to the tavern. But Pravalak himself, well, he had stared in disbelief. His first sight of someone from Dal Hon. She had been big and round and though she was decades older than him and her hair had gone grey he could see how she had been beautiful and indeed, to his eyes, she still was.
Such dark skin. Such dark eyes, and oh, she spied him out and gave him that gleaming smile, before leading him by the hand into a back room of the local gaol and delivering her recruiting pitch sitting on him and rocking with exalted glee until he exploded right into the Mala2an military.
His brothers had expressed their disbelief and were in a panic about how to explain to their ma and da how their youngest son had gone and got himself signed up and lost his virginity to a fifty-year-old demoness in the process-and was, in fact, not coming home at all. But that was their problem, and Pravalak had trundled off in the recruiter’s wagon, one hand firmly snuggled between her ample legs, without a backward look.
That first great love affair had lasted the distance to the next town, where he’d found himself transferred onto a train of about fifty other Grisian farm boys and girls and marching an imperial road down to Unta, and from there out to Malaz Island for training as a marine. But he had not been as heartbroken as he would have thought, for the Malazan forces were crowded for a time with Dal Honese recruits-some mysterious population explosion or political upheaval had triggered an exodus from the savanna and jungles of Dal Hon. And he had soon realized that his worship of midnight skin and midnight eyes did not doom him to abject longing and eternal solitude.
Until he first met Kisswhere, who had but laughed at his attempts, as smooth and honed as they had become by then. And it was this rejection that stole his heart for all time.
Yet what haunted him now was, perhaps surprisingly, not all of that unrequited adoration. It was what he had seen, or maybe but imagined, in that dark night on the river, after the blinding flash of the munitions and the roar that shook the water, that one black-skinned hand, reaching up out of the choppy waves, the spinning swirl of the current awakening once more in the wake of the tumult, parting round the elegant wrist-and then that hand slipped away, or was simply lost to his straining sight, his desperate, anguished search in the grainy darkness-the hand, the skin, the dark, dark skin that so defeated him that night…
Oh, he wanted to die, now. To end his misery. She was gone. Her sister was gone, too-a sister who had drawn him to one side just two nights earlier and had whispered in his