An old man past soldiering his rivets green, his eyes rimmed in rust, stood as if heaved awake from slaughter's pit, back-cut from broken flight when young blades chased him from the field.
He looks like a promise only fools could dream unfurled, the banners of glory gesticulating in the wind over his head, stripped like ghosts, skulls stove in, lips flapping, their open mouths mute.
'Oh harken to me,' cries he atop his imagined summit, and I shall speak – of riches and rewards, of my greatness, my face once young like these I see before me – harken!'
While here I sit at the Tapu's table, grease-fingered with skewered meat, cracked goblet pearled in the hot sun, the wine watered to make, in the alliance of thin and thick, both passing palatable.
As near as an arm's reach from this rabbler, this ravelling trumpeter who once might have stood shield-locked at my side, red-hued, masked drunk, coarse with fear, in the moment before he broke broke and ran and now he would call a new generation to war, to battle-clamour, and why? Well, why – all because he once ran, but listen: a soldier who ran once ever runs, and this, honoured magistrate, is the reason the sole reason I say for my knife finding his back.
He was a soldier whose words heaved me awake.
'Bedura's Defence' in The Slaying of King Qualin Tros of Bellid (transcribed as song by Fisher, Malaz City, last year of Laseen's Reign) Within an aura redolent and reminiscent of a crypt, Noto Boil, company cutter, Kartoolian by birth and once priest of Soliel, long, wispy, colourless hair plucked like strands of web by the wind, his skin the hue of tanned goat leather, stood like a bent sapling and picked at his green-furred teeth with a fish spine. It had been a habit of his for so long that he had worn round holes between each tooth, and the gums had receded far back, making his smile skeletal.
He had smiled but once thus far, by way of greeting, and for Ganoes Paran, that had been once too many.
At the moment, the healer seemed at best pensive, at worst distracted by boredom. 'I cannot say for certain, Captain Kindly,' the man finally said.
'About what?'
A flicker of the eyes, grey floating in yellow murk. 'Well, you had a question for me, did you not?'
'No,' Paran replied, 'I had for you an order.'
'Yes, of course, that is what I meant.'
'I commanded you to step aside.'
'The High Fist is very ill, Captain. It will avail you nothing to disturb his dying. More pointedly, you might well become infected with the dread contagion.'
'No, I won't. And it is his dying that I intend to do something about.
For now, however, I wish to see him. That is all.'
'Captain Sweetcreek has-'
'Captain Sweetcreek is no longer in command, cutter. I am. Now get out of my way before I reassign you to irrigating horse bowels, and given the poor quality of the feed they have been provided of late…'
Noto Boil examined the fish spine in his hand. 'I will make note of this in my company log, Captain Kindly. As the Host's ranking healer, there is some question regarding chain of command at the moment. After all, under normal circumstances I far outrank captains-'
'These are not normal circumstances. I'm losing my patience here.'
An expression of mild distaste. 'Yes, I have first-hand knowledge of what happens when you lose patience, no matter how unjust the situation. It fell to me, I remind you, to heal Captain Sweetcreek's fractured cheekbone.' The man stepped to one side of the entrance. '
Please, Captain, be welcome within.'
Sighing, Paran strode past the cutter, pulled aside the flap and entered the tent.
Gloom, the air hot and thick with heavy incense that could only just mask the foul reek of sickness. In this first chamber were four cots, each occupied by a company commander, only two of whom were familiar to Paran. All slept or were unconscious, limbs twisted in their sweatstained blankets, necks swollen by infection, each drawn breath a thin wheeze like some ghastly chorus. Shaken, the captain moved past them and entered the tent's back chamber, where there was but one occupant.
In the grainy, crepuscular air, Paran stared down at the figure in the cot. His first thought was that Dujek Onearm was already dead. An aged, bloodless face marred by dark purple blotches, eyes crusted shut by mucus. The man's tongue, the colour of Aren Steel, was so swollen it had forced open his mouth, splitting the parched lips. A healer – probably Noto Boil – had packed Dujek's neck in a mixture of mould, ash and clay, which had since dried, looking like a slave collar.
After a long moment, Paran heard Dujek draw breath, the sound uneven, catching again and again in faint convulsions of his chest. The meagre air then hissed back out in a rattling whistle.
Gods below, this man will not last the night.
The captain realized that his lips had gone numb, and he was having trouble focusing. This damned incense, it's d'bayang. He stood for another half-dozen heartbeats, looking down on the shrunken, frail figure of the Malazan Empire's greatest living general, then he turned about and strode from the chamber.
Two steps across the outer room and a hoarse voice halted him.
'Who in Hood's name are you?'
Paran faced the woman who had spoken. She was propped up on her bed, enough to allow her a level gaze on the captain. Dark-skinned, her complexion lacking the weathered lines of desert life, her eyes large and very dark. Stringy, sweat-plastered black hair, cut short yet nonetheless betraying a natural wave, surrounded her round face, which sickness had drawn, making her eyes seem deeper, more hollow.
'Captain Kindly-'
'By the Abyss you are. I served under Kindly in Nathilog.'
'Well, that's discouraging news. And you are?'
'Fist Rythe Bude.'
'One of Dujek's recent promotions, then, for I have never heard of you. Nor can I fathom where you hail from.'
'Shal-Morzinn.'
Paran frowned. 'West of Nemil?'
'Southwest.'
'How did you come to be in Nathilog, Fist?'
'By the Three, give me some water, damn you.'
Paran looked round until he found a bladder, which he brought to her side.
'You're a fool,' she said. 'Coming in here. Now you will die with the rest of us. You'll have to pour it into my mouth.'
He removed the stopper, then leaned closer.
She closed her remarkable, luminous eyes and tilted her head back, mouth opening. The weals on her neck were cracked, leaking clear fluid as thick as tears. Squeezing the bladder, he watched the water stream into her mouth.
She swallowed frantically, gasped then coughed.
He pulled the bladder away. 'Enough?'
She managed a nod, coughed again, then swore in some unknown language.
'This damned smoke,' she added in Malazan. 'Numbs the throat so you can't even tell when you're swallowing. Every time I close my eyes, d' bayang dreams rush upon me like the Red Winds.'
He stood, looking down upon her.
'I left Shal-Morzinn… in haste. On a Blue Moranth trader. Money for passage ran out in a town called Pitch, on the Genabarii coast. From there I made it to Nathilog, and with a belly too empty to let me think straight, I signed up.'
'Where had you intended to go?'
She made a face. 'As far as my coin would take me, fool. Crossing the Three is not a recipe for a long life. Blessings to Oponn's kiss, they didn't come after me.'
'The Three?'
'The rulers of Shal-Morzinn… for the past thousand years. You seemed to recognize the empire's name, which is more than most.'
'I know nothing beyond the name itself, which is found on certain Malazan maps.'
She croaked a laugh. 'Malazans. Knew enough to make their first visit their last.'
'I wasn't aware we'd visited at all,' Paran said.
'The Emperor. And Dancer. The imperial flagship, Twist. Gods, that craft alone was sufficient to give the Three pause. Normally, they annihilate strangers as a matter of course – we trade with no-one, not even Nemil. The Three despise outsiders. Were they so inclined they would have conquered the entire continent by now, including Seven Cities.'
'Not expansionists, then. No wonder no-one's heard of them.'
'More water.'
He complied.
When she'd finished coughing, she met his eyes. 'You never told me – who are you in truth?'
'Captain Ganoes Paran.'
'He's dead.'
'Not yet.'
'All right. So why the lie?'
'Dujek decommissioned me. Officially, I am without rank.'
'Then what in Hood's name are you doing here?'
He smiled. 'That's a long story. At the moment, I have one thing I need to do, and that is, repay a debt. I owe Dujek that much. Besides, it's not good to have a goddess loose in the mortal realm, especially one who delights in misery.'
'They all delight in misery.'
'Yes, well.'
She bared a row of even teeth, stained by sickness. 'Captain, do you think, had we known Poliel was in the temple, we would have gone in at all? You, on the other hand, don't have that excuse. Leaving me to conclude that you have lost your mind.'
'Captain Sweetcreek certainly agrees with you, Fist,' Paran said, setting the bladder down. 'I must take my leave. I would appreciate it, Fist Rythe Bude, if you refer to me as Captain Kindly.' He walked towards the tent's exit.
'Ganoes Paran.'
Something in her tone turned him round even as he reached for the flap.
'Burn my corpse,' she said. 'Ideally, fill my lungs with oil, so that my chest bursts, thus freeing to flight my ravaged soul. It's how it's done in Shal-Morzinn.'
He hesitated, then nodded.
Outside, he found the cutter Noto Boil still standing at his station, examining the bloodied point of the fish spine a moment before slipping it back into his mouth.
'Captain Kindly,' the man said in greeting. 'The outrider Hurlochel was just here, looking for you. From him, I gather you intend something… rash.'
'Cutter, when the alternative is simply waiting for them to die, I will accept the risk of doing something rash.'
'I see. How, then, have you planned this assault of yours? Given that you shall face the Grey Goddess herself. I doubt even your reputation will suffice in compelling the soldiers to assail the Grand Temple of Poliel. Indeed, I doubt you will get them to even so much as enter G' danisban.'
'I'm not taking any soldiers, cutter.'
A sage nod from the gaunt man. 'Ah, an army of one, then, is it?
Granted,' he added, eyeing Paran speculatively, 'I have heard tales of your extraordinary… ferocity. Is it true you once dangled a Falah'd over the edge of his palace's tower balcony? Even though he was an ally of the empire at the time. What was his crime again? Oh yes, a clash of colours in his attire, on the first day of the Emperor's Festival. What were those colours he had the effrontery to wear?'
Paran studied the man for a moment, then he smiled. 'Blue and green.'
'But those colours do not clash, Captain.'
'I never claimed good judgement in aesthetic matters, cutter. Now, what were we talking about? Oh yes, my army of one. Indeed. I intend to lead but one man. Together, the two of us shall attack the Grey Goddess, with the aim of driving her from this realm.'
'You chose wisely, I think,' Noto Boil said. 'Given what awaits Hurlochel, he displayed impressive calm a few moments ago.'
'And well he should,' Paran said, 'since he's not coming with me. You are.'
The fish spine speared through the cutter's upper lip. A look of agony supplanted disbelief. He tore the offending needle from his lip and flung it away, then brought up both hands to clench against the pain.
His eyes looked ready to clamber from their sockets.
Paran patted the man on the shoulder. 'Get that seen to, will you? We depart in half a bell, cutter.'
He sat on a kit chest, settled back slowly, until the give of the tent wall ceased, then stretched out his legs. 'I should be half-drunk right now,' he said, 'given what I'm about to do.'
Hurlochel seemed unable to muster a smile. 'Please, Captain. We should decamp. Cut our losses. I urge you to abandon this course of action, which will do naught but result in the death of yet another good soldier, not to mention an irritating but competent company cutter.'
'Ah, yes. Noto Boil. Once priest to Soliel, sister goddess of Poliel.'
'Priest no longer, Captain. Disavowed hold no weight with the ascendant so abandoned.'
'Soliel. Mistress of Healing, Beneficence, the Goddess that Weeps Healing Tears. She must have let loose an ocean of them by now, don't you think?'
'Is it wise to mock her at this threshold, Captain?'
'Why not? How has her infamous, unceasing sorrow for the plight of mortals done them any good, any at all, Hurlochel? It's easy to weep when staying far away, doing nothing. When you take credit for every survivor out there – those whose own spirits fought the battle, whose own spirits refused to yield to Hood's embrace.' He sneered up at the tent roof. 'It's the so-called friendly, sympathetic gods who have the most to answer for.' Paran glared at the man standing before him. '
Hood knows, the other ones are straightforward and damned clear on their own infamy – grant them that. But to proffer succour, salvation and all the rest, whilst leaving true fate to chance and chance alone – damn me, Hurlochel, to that they will give answer!'
The outrider's eyes were wide, unblinking.
Paran looked away. 'Sorry. Some thoughts I'd do better to keep to myself. It's a longstanding fault of mine, alas.'
'Captain. For a moment there… your eyes… they… flared. Like a beast's.'
Paran studied the man. 'Did they now?'
'I'd swear it with one heel on Hood's own foreskin, Captain.'
Ganoes Paran pushed himself to his feet. 'Relay these orders to the officers. This army marches in four days. In three days' time, I want them in full kit, dressed out with weapons bared for inspection, ready at noon. And when we depart, I want to leave this camp clean, every latrine filled in, the refuse burned.' He faced Hurlochel. 'Get these soldiers busy – they're rotting from the inside out. Do you have all that, Hurlochel?'
The outrider smiled, then repeated Paran's orders word for word.
'Good. Be sure to impress on the officers that these days of lying round moping and bitching are at an end. Tell them the order of march will place to the lead post the most presentable company – everyone else eats their dust.'
'Captain, where do we march?'
'No idea. I'll worry about that then.'
'What of the High Fist and the others in that tent?'
'Chances are, they won't be up to much for a while. In the meantime-'
'In the meantime, you command the Host, sir.'
'Aye, I do.'
Hurlochel's sudden salute was sharp, then he pivoted and strode from the tent.
Paran stared after him. Fine, at least someone's damned pleased about it.
A short time later, he and Noto Boil sat atop their horses at the camp's edge, looking downslope and across the flat killing-ground to the city's walls, its bleached-limestone facing a mass of scrawls, painted symbols, hand-prints, skeletal figures. This close, there should have been sounds rising from the other side of those walls, the haze of dust and smoke overhead, and the huge gate should be locked open for a steady stream of traders and hawkers, drovers and work crews. Soldiers should be visible in the windows of the gate's flanking square towers.
The only movement came from flocks of pigeons lifting into view then dipping back down, fitful and frantic as an armada of kites rejected by storm-winds; and from the blue-tinted desert starlings and croaking crows lined up like some nightmare army on the battlements.
'Captain,' the cutter said, the fish spine once more jutting from between his lips – the hole it had made earlier just above those lips was a red, slightly puckered spot, smeared like a popped pimple – 'you believe me capable of assaulting all that is anathema to me?'
'I thought you were disavowed,' Paran said.
'My point precisely. I cannot even so much as call upon Soliel for her benign protection. Perhaps your eyes are blind to the truth, but I tell you, Captain, I can see the air roiling up behind those walls – it is the breath of chaos. Currents swirl, heave – even to look upon them, as I do now, makes me ill. We shall die, you and I, not ten paces in from the gate.'
Paran checked the sword at his belt, then adjusted his helm's strap. '
I am not as blind as you believe me to be, cutter.' He studied the city for a moment, then gathered his reins. 'Ride close to my side, Noto Boil.'
'Captain, the gate looks closed, locked tight – we are not welcome.'
'Never mind the damned gate,' Paran said. 'Are you ready?'
The man turned wild eyes upon him. 'No,' he said in a high voice, 'I am not.'
'Let's get this over with,' Paran said, nudging his horse into motion.
Noto Boil spared one last look over his shoulder, and saw soldiers standing, watching, gathered in their hundreds. 'Gods,' he whispered, 'why am I not among them right now?'
Then he moved to catch up to Captain Kindly, who had once dangled an innocent man from a tower's edge. And now does it all over again – to me!
She had once been sent out to hunt down her younger brother, tracking him through half the city – oh, he'd known she was after him, known that she was the one they'd send, the only one capable of closing a hand on one scrawny ankle, dragging him back, then shaking him until his brain rattled inside his skull. He'd led her a wild trail that night. Ten years old and already completely out of control, eyes bright as marbles polished in a mouthful of spit, the white smile more wicked than a wolf's snarl, all gangly limbs and cavorting malice.
He had been collecting… things. In secret. Strands of hair, nail clippings, a rotted tooth. Something, it turned out, from everyone in the entire extended family. Forty-two, if one counted four-month-old Minarala – and he had, the little bastard. A madness less imaginative might have settled for a host of horrid dolls, upon which he could deliver minor but chronic torment to feed his insatiable evil, but not her brother, who clearly believed himself destined for vast infamy.
Not content with dolls fashioned in likenesses, he had constructed, from twine, sticks, straw, wool and horn, a tiny flock of forty-two sheep. Penned in a kraal of sticks assembled on the floor of the estate's attic. Then, from one of his own milk teeth, newly plucked from his mouth, he made for himself the likeness of a wolf fang and then, with tatters of fur, the wolf to which it belonged, of a scale to permit it to devour a sheep-doll in a single gulp.
In skeins of demented magic, he had set his wolf among the flock.
Screams and wails in the night, in household after household, unleashed from terrifying nightmares steeped in the reek of panic and lanolin, of clopping hoofs and surges of desperate, hopeless flight.
Nips and buffets from the huge roaring wolf, the beast toying with every one of them – oh, she would remember the torment for a long, long time.
In the course of the following day, as uncles, aunts, nephews and the like gathered, all pale and trembling, and as the revelation arrived that one and all had shared their night of terror, few were slow in realizing the source of their nightmares – of course he had already lit out, off to one of his countless bolt-holes in the city. Where he would hide until such time as the fury and outrage should pass.
For the crimes committed by children, all fugue eventually faded, as concern rose in its stead. For most children, normal children; but not for Ben Adaephon Delat, who had gone too far. Again.
And so Torahaval Delat had been dispatched to track down her brother, and to deliver upon him an appropriate punishment. Such as, she had considered at the time, flaying him alive. Sheep, were they? Well, she carried in her pack the wolf doll, and with that she intended most dreadful torture. Though nowhere near as talented as her younger brother, and admittedly far less imaginative, she had managed to fashion a leash of sorts for the creature, and now, no matter where her brother went, she could follow.
He was able to stay ahead of her for most of a day and the following night, until a bell before dawn when, on a rooftop in the Prelid Quarter of Aren, she caught up with him, holding in her hands the wolf doll, gripping the back legs and pulling them wide.
The boy, running flat out one moment, flat on his face the next.
Squealing and laughing, and, even as she stumbled, that laughter stung so that she gave those legs an extra twist.
And, screaming, fell onto the pebbled roof, her hips filling with agony.
Her brother shrieked as well, yet could not stop laughing.
She had not looked too closely at the wolf doll, and now, gasping and wincing, she sought to do so. The gloom was reluctant to yield, but at last she made out the beast's bound-up body beneath the tatter of fur – her underclothes – the ones that had disappeared from the clothesline a week earlier – knotted and wrapped tight around some solid core, the nature of which she chose not to deliberate overmuch.
He'd known she would come after him. Had known she'd find his stash of dolls in the attic. Had known she would make use of the wolf doll, his own anima that he had so carelessly left behind. He'd known… everything.
That night, in the darkness before dawn, Torahaval decided that she would hate him, for ever more. Passionately, a hatred fierce enough to scour the earth in its entirety.
It's easy to hate the clever ones, even if they happen to be kin.
Perhaps especially then.
There was no clear path from that recollection to her life now, to this moment, with the singular exception of the sensation that she was trapped inside a nightmare; one from which, unlike that other nightmare all those years ago, she would never awaken.
Her brother was not there, laughing and gasping, then finally, convulsed with glee on the rooftop, releasing the sorcery within the wolf doll. Making the pain go away. Her brother, dead or alive – by now more probably dead – was very far away. And she wished, with all her heart, that it wasn't so.
Mumbling like a drunk beggar, Bridthok sat before the stained granitetopped table to her right, his long-nailed fingers pushing the strange assortment of gold and silver coins back and forth as he sought to force upon them some means of categorization, a task at which he was clearly failing. The vast chests of coinage in Poliel's temple were bottomless – not figuratively but literally, they had discovered. And to reach down into the ice-cold darkness was to close hands on frostrimed gold and silver, in all manner of currency. Stamped bars, studded teeth, holed spheres, torcs and rings, rolled bolts of goldthreaded silk small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, and coins of all sorts: square, triangular, crescent, holed, tubular, along with intricate folding boxes, chains, beads, spools, honeycomb wafers and ingots. Not one of which was familiar to any of them gathered here – trapped here – in the G'danisban temple with its mad, horrendous goddess. Torahaval had no idea there were so many languages in the world, such as she saw inscribed upon much of the currency. Letters like tiny images, letters proceeding diagonally, or vertically, or in spiral patterns, some letters little more than patterns of dots.
From other realms, Bridthok insisted. The more mundane coins could be found in the eastern chamber behind the altar, an entire room heaped with the damned things. An empire's treasury in that room alone, the man claimed, and perhaps he was right. With the first rumour of plague, the coffers of Poliel filled to overflowing. But it was the alien coinage that most interested the old man. It had since become Bridthok's obsession, this Cataloguing of Realms that he claimed would be his final glory of scholarship.
A strange contrast, this academic bent, in a man for whom ambition and lust for power seemed everything, the very reason for drawing breath, the cage in which his murderous heart paced.
He had loosed more rumours of his death than anyone she had ever known, a new one every year or so, to keep the many hunters from his trail, he claimed. She suspected he simply took pleasure in the challenge of invention. Among the fools – her co-conspirators – gathered here, Bridthok was perhaps the most fascinating. Neither Septhune Anabhin nor Sradal Purthu encouraged her, in matters of trust or respect. And Sribin, well, Sribin was no longer even recognizable.
The fate, it seemed, of those whom the Grey Goddess took as mortal lover. And when she tired of the rotted, moaning thing that had once been Sribin, the bitch would select another. From her dwindling store of terrified prisoners. Male, female, adult, child, it mattered naught to Poliel.
Bridthok insisted the cult of Sha'ik was reborn, invigorated beyond – far beyond – all that had gone before. Somewhere, out there, was the City of the Fallen, and a new Sha'ik, and the Grey Goddess was harvesting for her a broken legion of the mad, for whom all that was mortal belonged to misery and grief, the twin offspring of Poliel's womb. And, grey in miasma and chaos, blurred by distance, there lurked the Crippled God, twisted and cackling in his chains, ever drawing tighter this foul alliance.
What knew Torahaval of wars among the gods? She did not even care, beyond the deathly repercussions in her own world, her own life.
Her younger brother had long ago fallen one way; and she another, and now all hope of escape was gone.
Bridthok's mumbling ceased in a sudden gasp. He started in his chair, head lifting, eyes widening.
A tremor ran through Torahaval Delat. 'What is it?' she demanded.
The old man rose from behind the table. 'She summons us.'
I too must be mad – what is there left in life to love? Why do I still grip the edge, when the Abyss offers everything I now yearn for?
Oblivion. An end. Gods… an end. 'More than that, Bridthok,' she said. 'You look… aghast.'
Saying nothing and not meeting her eye, he headed out into the hallway. Cursing under her breath, Torahaval followed.
Once, long ago, her brother – no more than four, perhaps five years old at the time, long before the evil within him had fully grown into itself – had woken screaming in the night, and she had run to his bedside to comfort him. In child words, he described his nightmare. He had died, yet walked the world still, for he had forgotten something.
Forgotten, and no matter what he did, no recollection was possible.
And so his corpse wandered, everywhere, with ever the same question on his lips, a question delivered to every single person cursed to cross his path. What? What have I forgotten?
It had been hard to reconcile that shivering, wide-eyed child hiding in her arms that night with the conniving trickster of only a few years later.
Perhaps, she now thought as she trailed Bridthok and the train of his flapping, threadbare robes, perhaps in the interval of those few years, Adaephon Delat had remembered what it was he had forgotten.
Perhaps it was nothing more than what a corpse still striding the mortal world could not help but forget.
How to live.
'I thought daytime was supposed to be for sleeping,' Bottle muttered as his sergeant tugged on his arm yet again. The shade of the boulder he had been curled up beside was, the soldier told himself, the only reason he was still alive. This day had been the hottest yet. Insects crawling on stone slabs had cooked halfway across, shells popping like seeds. No-one moved, no-one said a thing. Thirst and visions of water obsessed the entire troop. Bottle had eventually fallen into a sleep that still pulled at him with torpid, heavy hands.
If only Fiddler would damned well leave him alone.
'Come with me, Bottle. Up. On your feet.'
'If you've found a cask of spring water, Sergeant, then I'm yours.
Otherwise…'
Fiddler lifted him upright, then dragged him along. Stumbling, his tongue feeling like a knot of leather strips, Bottle was barely aware of the path underfoot. Away from the road, among wind-sculpted rocks, winding this way and that. Half-blinded by the glare, it was a moment before he realized that they had stopped, were standing on a clearing of flat sand, surrounded by boulders, and there were two figures awaiting them.
Bottle felt his heart tighten in his chest. The one seated crosslegged opposite was Quick Ben. To his right squatted the assassin Kalam, his dark face glistening, worn black gloves on his hands and the elongated handles of his twin long-knives jutting out from beneath his arms. The man looked ready to kill something, although Bottle suspected that was his normal expression.
Quick Ben's eyes were fixed on him, languid yet dangerous, like a leopard playing with a maimed hare. But there was something else in that regard, Bottle suspected. Something not quite hidden. Fear?
After a moment of locked gazes, Bottle's attention was drawn to the collection of dolls perched in the sand before the wizard.
Professional interest helped push down his own fear, for the time being, at least. Involuntarily, he leaned forward.
'It's an old art,' Quick Ben said. 'But you know that, don't you, soldier?'
'You're at an impasse,' Bottle said.
The wizard's brows lifted, and he shot Kalam an unreadable glance before clearing his throat and saying, 'Aye, I am. How did you see it?
And how so… quickly?'
Bottle shrugged.
Quick Ben scowled at an amused grunt from Fiddler. 'All right, you damned imp, any suggestions on what to do about it?'
Bottle ran a hand through the grimy stubble of his hair. 'Tell me what you're trying to do.'
'What I'm trying to do, soldier, is none of your damned business!'
Sighing, Bottle settled onto the sand, assuming a posture to match that of the man opposite him. He studied the figures, then pointed to one. 'Who's she?'
Quick Ben started. 'I didn't know it was a "she".'
'First one you set down, I'd hazard. You probably woke from a bad dream, all confused, but knowing something was wrong, something somewhere, and this one – this woman – she's your link to it. Family, I'd hazard. Mother? Daughter? Sister? Sister, yes. She's been thinking about you. A lot, lately. Look at the skein of shadow lines around her, like she was standing in a thatch of grass, only there ain't no grass nearby, so that skein belongs to something else.'
'Hood squeeze my balls,' Quick Ben hissed, eyes now darting among the figures on the sand. He seemed to have forgotten his belligerence. '
Torahaval? What in the name of the Abyss has she got herself into now?
And how come not one of the others can reach a single shadow towards her?'
Bottle scratched at his beard, fingernails trapping a nit. He pulled it loose and flicked it away.
Kalam started, then cursed. 'Watch that!'
'Sorry.' Bottle pointed at one doll, wrapped in black silks. The shadow the doll cast seemed to reveal two projections of some kind, like crows perched on each shoulder. 'That's Apsalar, yes? She's part of this, all right, though not at the moment. I think her path was meant to cross your sister's, only it never happened. So, there was intent, unfulfilled, and be glad for that. That one's Cotillion and aye, he's dancing his infernal dance all right, but his only role was in starting the pebble from the hilltop – how it rolled and what it picked up on the way down he left to the fates. Still, you're right in choosing the House of Shadows. Was that instinct? Never mind. Here's your problem.' He pointed at another doll, this one hooded and cloaked entirely in gauze-thin black linen.
Quick Ben blinked, then frowned. 'Hardly. That's Shadowthrone, and he' s central to this. It's all got to do with him and, damn you, Bottle, that's more than instinct!'
'Oh, he's central all right, but see how his shadow doesn't reach?'
'I know it doesn't reach! But that's where he stands, damn you!'
Bottle reached out and collected the doll.
Snarling, Quick Ben half rose, but Fiddler's hand snapped out, pushed the wizard back down.
'Get that paw off me, sapper,' the wizard said, his tone low, even.
'I warned you,' the sergeant said, 'didn't I?' He withdrew his hand, and Quick Ben settled back as if something much heavier had just landed on his shoulders.
In the meantime, Bottle was busy reworking the doll. Bending the wires within the arms and legs. For his own efforts, he rarely used wire – too expensive – but in this case they made his reconfiguring the doll much easier. Finally satisfied, he set it back, in precisely the same position as before.
No-one spoke, all eyes fixed on the doll of Shadowthrone – now on all fours, right foreleg and left rear leg raised, the entire form pitched far forward, impossibly balanced. The shadow stretching out to within a finger's breadth of the figure that was Torahaval Delat.
Shadowthrone… now something else…
Kalam whispered, 'Still not touching…'
Bottle settled back, crossing his arms as he lay down on the sand. '
Wait,' he said, then closed his eyes, and a moment later was asleep once more.
Crouched close at Quick Ben's side, Fiddler let out a long breath.
The wizard pulled his stare from the reconfigured Shadowthrone, his eyes bright as he looked over at the sapper. 'He was half asleep, Fid.'
The sergeant shrugged.
'No,' the wizard said, 'you don't understand. Half asleep. Someone's with him. Was with him, I mean. Do you have any idea how far back sympathetic magic like this goes? To the very beginning. To that glimmer, that first glimmer, Fid. The birth of awareness. Are you understanding me?'
'As clear as the moon lately,' Fiddler said, scowling.
'The Eres'al, the Tall Ones – before a single human walked this world.
Before the Imass, before even the K'Chain Che'Malle. Fiddler, Eres was here. Now. Herself. With him.'
The sapper looked back down at the doll of Shadowthrone. Four-legged now, frozen in its headlong rush – and the shadow it cast did not belong, did not fit at all. For the head was broad, the snout prominent and wide, jaws opened but wrapped about something. And whatever that thing was, it slithered and squirmed like a trapped snake.
What in Hood's name? Oh. Oh, wait…
Atop a large boulder that had sheared, creating an inclined surface, Apsalar was lying flat on her stomach, watching the proceedings in the clearing twenty-odd paces distant. Disturbing conversations, those, especially that last part, about the Eres. Just another hoary ancient better left alone. That soldier, Bottle, needed watching.
Torahaval Delat… one of the names on that spy's – Mebra's – list in Ehrlitan. Quick Ben's sister. Well, that was indeed unfortunate, since it seemed that both Cotillion and Shadowthrone wanted the woman dead, and they usually got what they wanted. Thanks to me… and people like me. The gods place knives into our mortal hands, and need do nothing more.
She studied Quick Ben, gauging his growing agitation, and began to suspect that the wizard knew something of the extremity that his sister now found herself in. Knew, and, in the thickness of blood that bound kin no matter how estranged, the foolish man had decided to do something about it.
Apsalar waited no longer, allowing herself to slide back down the flat rock, landing lightly in thick wind-blown sand, well in shadow and thoroughly out of sight from anyone. She adjusted her clothes, scanned the level ground around her, then drew from folds in her clothing two daggers, one into each hand.
There was music in death. Actors and musicians knew this as true. And, for this moment, so too did Apsalar.
To a chorus of woe no-one else could hear, the woman in black began the Shadow Dance.
Telorast and Curdle, who had been hiding in a fissure near the flattopped boulder, now edged forward.
'She's gone into her own world,' Curdle said, nonetheless whispering, her skeletal head bobbing and weaving, tail flicking with unease.
Before them, Not-Apsalar danced, so infused with shadows she was barely visible. Barely in this world at all.
'Never cross this one, Curdle,' Telorast hissed. 'Never.'
'Wasn't planning to. Not like you.'
'Not me. Besides, the doom's come upon us – what are we going to do?'
'Don't know.'
'I say we cause trouble, Curdle.'
Tiny jaws clacked. 'I like that.'
Quick Ben rose suddenly. 'I've got no choice,' he said.
Kalam swore, then said, 'I hate it when you say that, Quick.'
The wizard drew out another doll, this one trailing long threads. He set it down a forearm's reach from the others, then looked over and nodded to Kalam.
Scowling, the assassin unsheathed one of his long-knives and stabbed it point-first into the sand.
'Not the otataral one, idiot.'
'Sorry.' Kalam withdrew the weapon and resheathed it, then drew out the other knife. A second stab into the sand.
Quick Ben knelt, carefully gathering the threads and leading them over to the long-knife's grip, where he fashioned knots, joining the doll to the weapon. 'See these go taut-'
'I grab the knife and pull you back here. I know, Quick, this ain't the first time, remember?'
'Right. Sorry.'
The wizard settled back into his cross-legged position..
'Hold on,' Fiddler said in a growl. 'What's going on here? You ain't planning something stupid, are you? You are. Damn you, Quick-'
'Be quiet,' the wizard said, closing his eyes. 'Me and Shadowthrone,' he whispered, 'we're old friends.' Then he smiled.
In the clearing, Kalam fixed his gaze on the doll that was now the only link between Quick Ben and his soul. 'He's gone, Fid. Don't say nothing, I need to concentrate. Those strings could go tight at any time, slow, so slow you can't even see it happen, but suddenly…'
'He should've waited,' Fiddler said. 'I wasn't finished saying what I was planning on saying, and he just goes. Kal, I got a bad feeling.
Tell me Quick and Shadowthrone really are old friends. Kalam? Tell me Quick wasn't being sarcastic.''
The assassin flicked a momentary look up at the sapper, then licked his lips, returning to his study of the threads. Had they moved? No, not much anyway. 'He wasn't being sarcastic, Fid.'
'Good.'
'No, more sardonic, I think.'
'Not good. Listen, can you pull him out right now? I think you should-'
'Quiet, damn you! I need to watch. I need to concentrate.' Fid's got a bad feeling. Shit.
Paran and Noto Boil rode up and halted in the shadow cast by the city wall. The captain dismounted and stepped up to the battered facade.
With his dagger he etched a broad, arched line, beginning on his left at the wall's base, then up, over – taking two paces – and down again, ending at the right-side base. In the centre he slashed a pattern, then stepped back, slipping the knife into its scabbard.
Remounting the horse, he gathered the reins and said, 'Follow me.'
And he rode forward. His horse tossed its head and stamped its forelegs a moment before plunging into, and through, the wall. They emerged moments later onto a litter-strewn street. The faces of empty, lifeless buildings, windows stove in. A place of devastation, a place where civilization had crumbled, revealing at last its appallingly weak foundations. Picked white bones lay scattered here and there. A glutted rat wobbled its way along the wall's gutter.
After a long moment, the healer appeared, leading his mount by the reins. 'My horse,' he said, 'is not nearly as stupid as yours, Captain. Alas.'
'Just less experienced,' Paran said, looking round. 'Get back in the saddle. We may be alone for the moment, but that will not last.'
'Gods below,' Noto Boil hissed, scrambling back onto his horse. 'What has happened here?'
'You did not accompany the first group?'
They rode slowly onto the gate avenue, then in towards the heart of G' danisban.
'Dujek's foray? No, of course not. And how I wish the High Fist was still in command.'
Me too. 'The Grand Temple is near the central square – where is Soliel's Temple?'
'Soliel? Captain Kindly, I cannot enter that place – not ever again.'
'How did you come to be disavowed, Boil?'
'Noto Boil, sir. There was a disagreement… of a political nature. It may be that the nefarious, incestuous, nepotistic quagmire of a priest's life well suits the majority of its adherents. Unfortunately, I discovered too late that I could not adapt to such an existence. You must understand, actual worship was the least among daily priorities.
I made the error of objecting to this unnatural, nay, unholy inversion.'
'Very noble of you,' Paran remarked. 'Oddly enough, I heard a different tale about your priestly demise. More specifically, you lost a power struggle at the temple in Kartool. Something about the disposition of the treasury.'
'Clearly, such events are open to interpretation. Tell me, Captain, since you can walk through walls thicker than a man is tall, do you possess magical sensitivities as well? Can you feel the foul hunger in the air? It is hateful. It wants us, our flesh, where it can take root and suck from us every essence of health. This is Poliel's breath, and even now it, begins to claim us.'
'We are not alone, cutter.'
'No. I would be surprised if we were. She will spare her followers, her carriers. She will-'
'Quiet,' Paran said, reining in. 'I meant, we are not alone right now.'
Eyes darting, Noto Boil scanned the immediate area. 'There,' he whispered, pointing towards an alley mouth.
They watched as a young woman stepped out from the shadows of the alley. She was naked, frighteningly thin, her eyes dark, large and luminous. Her lips were cracked and split, her hair wild and braided in filth. An urchin who had survived in the streets, a harvester of the discarded, and yet…
'Not a carrier,' Paran said in a murmur. 'I see about her… purest health.'
Noto Boil nodded. 'Aye. In spite of her apparent condition. Captain Kindly, this child has been chosen… by Soliel.'
'I take it, not something you even thought possible, back when you were a priest.'
The cutter simply shook his head.
The girl came closer. 'Malazans,' she said, her voice rasping as if from lack of use. 'Once. Years – a year? Once, there were other Malazans. One of them pretended he was a Gral, but I saw the armour under the robes, I saw the sigil of the Bridgeburners, from where I hid beneath a wagon. I was young, but not too young. They saved me, those Malazans. They drew away the hunters. They saved me.'
Paran cleared his throat. 'And so now Soliel chooses you… to help us.'
Noto Boil said, 'For she has always blessed those who repay kindness.'
The cutter's voice was tremulous with wonder. 'Soliel,' he whispered, 'forgive me.'
'There are hunters,' the girl said. 'Coming. They know you are here.
Strangers, enemies to the goddess. Their leader holds great hatred, for all things. Bone-scarred, broke-faced, he feeds on the pain he delivers. Come with me-'
'Thank you,' Paran said, cutting in, 'but no. Know that your warning is welcome, but I intend to meet these hunters. I intend to have them lead me to the Grey Goddess.'
'Brokeface will not permit it. He will kill you, and your horse. Your horse first, for he hates such creatures.'
Noto Boil hissed. 'Captain, please – this is an offer from Soliel-'
'The offer I expect from Soliel,' Paran said, tone hardening, 'will come later. One goddess at a time.' He readied his horse under him, then hesitated, glanced over at the cutter.
'Go with her, then. We will meet up at the entrance to the Grand Temple.'
'Captain, what is it you expect of me?'
'Me? Nothing. What I expect is for Soliel to make use of you, but not as she has done this child here. I expect something a lot more than that.' Paran nudged his mount forward. 'And,' he added amidst clumping hoofs, 'I won't take no for an answer.'
Noto Boil watched the madman ride off, up the main avenue, then the healer swung his horse until facing the girl. He drew the fish spine from his mouth and tucked it behind an ear. Then cleared his throat. '
Goddess… child. I have no wish to die, but I must point out, that man does not speak for me. Should you smite him down for his disrespect, I most certainly will not see in that anything unjust or undeserving. In fact-'
'Be quiet, mortal,' the girl said in a much older voice. 'In that man the entire world hangs in balance, and I shall not be for ever known as the one responsible for altering that condition. In any way whatsoever. Now, prepare to ride – I shall lead, but I shall not once wait for you should you lose the way.'
'I thought you offered to guide me-'
'Of lesser priority now,' she said, smirking. 'Inverted in a most unholy fashion, you might say. No, what I seek now is to witness. Do you understand? To witness!' And with that the girl spun round and sped off.
Swearing, the cutter drove heels into his mount's flanks, hard on the girl's trail.
Paran rode at a canter down the main avenue that seemed more a processional route into a necropolis than G'danisban's central artery, until he saw ahead a mob of figures fronted by a single man – in his hands a farmer's scythe from which dangled a blood-crusted horse-tail.
The motley army – perhaps thirty or forty in all – looked as if they had been recruited from a paupers' burial pit. Covered in sores and weals, limbs twisted, faces slack, the eyes glittering with madness.
Some carried swords, others butcher's cleavers and knives, or spears, shepherd's crooks or stout branches. Most seemed barely able to stand.
Such was not the case with their leader, the one the girl had called Brokeface. The man's visage was indeed pinched misshapen, flesh and bones folded in at right lower jaw, then across the face, diagonally, to the right cheekbone. He had been bitten, the captain realized, by a horse. … your horse first. For he hates such creatures…
In that ruined face, the eyes, misaligned in the sunken pits of their sockets, burned bright as they fixed on Paran's own. Something like a smile appeared on the collapsed cave of the man's mouth.
'Her breath is not sweet enough for you? You are strong to so resist her. She would know, first, who you are. Before,' his smile twisted further, 'before we kill you.'
'The Grey Goddess does not know who I am,' Paran said, 'for this reason. From her, I have turned away. From me she can compel nothing.'
Brokeface flinched. 'There is a beast… in your eyes. Reveal yourself, Malazan. You are not as the others.'
'Tell her,' Paran said, 'I come to make an offering.'
The head cocked to one side. 'You seek to appease the Grey Goddess?'
'In a manner of speaking. But I should tell you, we have very little time.'
'Very little? Why?'
'Take me to her and I will explain. But quickly.'
'She does not fear you.'
'Good.'
The man studied Paran for a moment longer, then he gestured with his scythe. 'Follow, then.'
There had been plenty of altars before which she had knelt over the years, and from them, one and all, Torahaval Delat had discovered something she now held to be true. All that is worshipped is but a reflection of the worshipper. A single god, no matter how benign, is tortured into a multitude of masks, each shaped by the secret desires, hungers, fears and joys of the individual mortal, who but plays a game of obsequious approbation.
Believers lunged into belief. The faithful drowned in their faith.
And there was another truth, one that seemed on the surface to contradict the first one. The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god's name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands.
Torahaval's hands were bloodstained, figuratively now but once most literally. Driven to fill some vast, empty space in her soul, she had lunged, she had drowned; she had looked for some external hand of salvation – seeking what she could not find in herself. And, whether benign and love-swollen or brutal and painful, every god's touch had felt the same to her – barely sensed through the numbed obsession that was her need.
She had stumbled onto this present path the same way she had stumbled onto so many others, yet this time, it seemed there could be no going back. Every alternative, every choice, had vanished before her eyes.
The first strands of the web had been spun more than fourteen months ago, in her chosen home city Karashimesh, on the shores of the inland Karas Sea – a web she had since, in a kind of lustful wilfulness, allowed to close ever tighter.
The sweet lure from the Grey Goddess, in spirit now the poisoned lover of the Chained One – the seduction of the flawed had proved so very inviting. And deadly. For us both. This was, she realized as she trailed Bridthok down the Aisle of Glory leading to the transept, no more than the spreading of legs before an inevitable, half-invited rape. Regret would come later if at all.
Perhaps, then, a most appropriate end.
For this foolish woman, who never learned how to live.
The power of the Grey Goddess swirled in thick tendrils through the battered-down doorway, so virulent as to rot stone.
Awaiting Bridthok and Torahaval at the threshold were the remaining acolytes of this desperate faith. Septhune Anabhin of Omari; and Sradal Purthu, who had fled Y'Ghatan a year ago after a failed attempt to kill that Malazan bitch, Dunsparrow. Both looked shrunken, now, some essence of their souls drained away, dissolving in the miasma like salt in water. Pained terror in their eyes as both turned to watch Bridthok and Torahaval arrive.
'Sribin is dead,' Septhune whispered. 'She will now choose another.'
And so she did.
Invisible, a hand huge and clawed – more fingers than could be sanely conceived – closed about Torahaval's chest, spears of agony sinking deep. A choked gasp burst from her throat and she staggered forward, pushing through the others, all of whom shrank back, gazes swimming with relief and pity – the relief far outweighing the pity. Hatred for them flashed through Torahaval, even as she staggered into the altar chamber; eyes burning in the acid fog of pestilence she lifted her head, and looked upon Poliel.
And saw the hunger that was desire.
The pain expanded, filled her body – then subsided as the clawed hand withdrew, the crusted talons pulling loose.
Torahaval fell to her knees, slid helplessly in her own sweat that had pooled on the mosaic floor beneath her.
Ware what you ask for. Ware what you seek.
The sound of horse hoofs, coming from the Aisle of Glory, getting louder.
A rider comes. A rider? What – who dares this – gods below, thank you, whoever you are. Thank you. She still clung to the edge. A few breaths more, a few more…
Sneering, Brokeface pushed past the cowering priests at the threshold.
Paran scanned the three withered, trembling figures, and frowned as they each in turn knelt at the touch of his regard, heads bowing.
'What ails them?' he asked.
Brokeface's laugh hacked in the grainy air. 'Well said, stranger. You have cold iron in your spine, I'll give you that.'
Idiot. I wasn't trying to be funny.
'Get off that damned horse,' Brokeface said, blocking the doorway. He licked his misshapen lips, both hands shifting on the shaft of the scythe.
'Not a chance,' Paran said. 'I know how you take care of horses.'
'You cannot ride into the altar chamber!'
'Clear the way,' Paran said. 'This beast does not bother biting – it prefers to kick and stamp. Delights in the sound of breaking bones, in fact.'
As the horse, nostrils flared, stepped closer to the doorway, Brokeface flinched, edged back. Then he bared his crooked teeth and hissed, 'Can't you feel her wrath? Her outrage? Oh, you foolish man!'
'Can she feel mine?'
Paran ducked as his horse crossed the threshold. He straightened a moment later. A woman writhed on the tiles to his left, her dark skin streaked in sweat, her long limbs trembling as the plague-fouled air stroked and slipped round her, languid as a lover's caress.
Beyond this woman rose a dais atop three broad, shallow steps on which were scattered the broken fragments of the altarstone. Centred on the dais, where the altar had once stood, was a throne fashioned of twisted, malformed bones. Commanding this seat, a figure radiating such power that her form was barely discernible. Long limbs, suppurating with venom, a bared chest androgynous in its lack of definition, its shrunken frailty; the legs that extended outward seemed to possess too many joints, and the feet were three-toed and taloned, raptorial yet as large as those of an enkar'al. Poliel's eyes were but the faintest of sparks, blurred and damp at the centre of black bowls. Her mouth, broad and the lips cracked and oozing, curled now into a smile.
'Soletaken,' she said in a thin voice, 'do not frighten me. I had thought, for a moment… but no, you are nothing to me.'
'Goddess,' Paran said, settling back on his horse, 'I remain turned away. The choice is mine, not yours, and so you see only what I will you to see.'
'Who are you? What are you?'
'In normal circumstances, Poliel, I am but an arbiter. I have come to make an offering.'
'You understand, then,' the Grey Goddess said, 'the truth beneath the veil. Blood was their path. And so we choose to poison it.'
Paran frowned, then he shrugged and reached into the folds of his shirt. 'Here is my gift,' he said. Then hesitated. 'I regret, Poliel, that these circumstances… are not normal.'
The Grey Goddess said, 'I do not understand-'
'Catch!'
A small, gleaming object flashed from his hand.
She raised hers in defence.
A whispering, strangely thin sound marked the impact. Impaling her hand, a shard of metal. Otataral.
The goddess convulsed, a terrible, animal scream bursting from her throat, ripping the air. Chaotic power, shredding into tatters and spinning away, waves of grey fire charging like unleashed creatures of rage, mosaic tiles exploding in their wake.
On a bridling, skittish horse, Paran watched the conflagration of agony, and wondered, of a sudden, whether he had made a mistake.
He looked down at the mortal woman, curled up on the floor. Then at her fragmented shadow, slashed through by… nothing. Well, I knew that much. Time's nearly up.
A different throne, this one so faint as to be nothing more than the hint of slivered shadows, sketched across planes of dirty ice – oddly changed, Quick Ben decided, from the last time he had seen it.
As was the thin, ghostly god reclining on that throne. Oh, the hood was the same, ever hiding the face, and the gnarled black hand still perched on the knotted top of the bent walking stick – the perch of a scavenger, like a one-legged vulture – and emanating from the apparition that was Shadowthrone, like some oversweet incense reaching out to brush the wizard's senses, a cloying, infuriating… smugness.
Nothing unusual in all of that. Even so, there was… something…
'Delat,' the god murmured, as if tasting every letter of the name with sweet satisfaction.
'We're not enemies,' Quick Ben said, 'not any longer, Shadowthrone.
You cannot be blind to that.'
'Ah but you wish me blind, Delat! Yes yes yes, you do. Blind to the past – to every betrayal, every lie, every vicious insult you have delivered foul as spit at my feet!'
'Circumstances change.'
'Indeed they do!'
The wizard could feel sweat trickling beneath his clothes. Something here was… what?
Was very wrong.
'Do you know,' Quick Ben asked, 'why I am here?'
'She has earned no mercy, wizard. Not even from you.'
'I am her brother.'
'There are rituals to sever such ties,' Shadowthrone said, 'and your sister has done them all!'
'Done them all? No, tried them all. There are threads that such rituals cannot touch. I made certain of that. I would not be here otherwise.'
A snort. 'Threads. Such as those you take greatest pleasure in spinning, Adaephon Delat? Of course. It is your finest talent, the weaving of impossible skeins.' The hooded head seemed to wag from side to side as Shadowthrone chanted, 'Nets and snares and traps, lines and hooks and bait, nets and snares and-' Then he leaned forward. 'Tell me, why should your sister be spared? And how – truly, how – do you imagine that I have the power to save her? She is not mine, is she?
She's not here in Shadow Keep, is she?' He cocked his head. 'Oh my.
Even now she draws her last few breaths… as the mortal lover of the Grey Goddess – what, pray tell, do you expect me to do?'
Quick Ben stared. The Grey Goddess? Poliel? Oh, Torahaval… '
Wait,' he said, 'Bottle confirmed it – more than instinct – you are involved. Right now, wherever they are, it has something to do with you!'
A spasmodic cackle from Shadowthrone, enough to make the god's thin, insubstantial limbs convulse momentarily. 'You owe me, Adaephon Delat!
Acknowledge this and I will send you to her! This instant! Accept the debt!'
Dammit. First Kalam and now me. You bastard, Shadowthrone – 'All right! I owe you! I accept the debt!'
The Shadow God gestured, a lazy wave of one hand.
And Quick Ben vanished.
Alone once again, Shadowthrone settled back in his throne. 'So fraught,' he whispered. 'So… careless, unmindful of this vast, echoing, mostly empty hall. Poor man. Poor, poor man. Ah, what's this I find in my hand?' He looked over to see a short-handled scythe now gripped and poised before him. The god narrowed his gaze, looked about in the gloomy air, then said, 'Well, look at these! Threads! Worse than cobwebs, these! Getting everywhere – grossly indicative of sloppy… housekeeping. No, they won't do, won't do at all.' He swept the scythe's blade through the sorcerous tendrils, watched as they spun away into nothingness. 'There now,' he said, smiling, 'I feel more hygienic already.'
Throttled awake by gloved hands at his throat, he flailed about, then was dragged to his knees. Kalam's face thrust close to his own, and in that face, Bottle saw pure terror.
'The threads!' the assassin snarled.
Bottle pushed the man's hands away, scanned the sandy tableau, then grunted. 'Cut clean, I'd say.'
Standing nearby, Fiddler said, 'Go get him, Bottle! Find him – bring him back!'
The young soldier stared at the two men. 'What? How am I supposed to do that? He should never have gone in the first place!' Bottle crawled over to stare at the wizard's blank visage. 'Gone,' he confirmed. '
Straight into Shadowthrone's lair – what was he thinking?'
'Bottle!'
'Oh,' the soldier added, something else catching his gaze, 'look at that – what's she up to, I wonder?'
Kalam pushed Bottle aside and fell to his hands and knees, glaring down at the dolls. Then he shot upright. 'Apsalar! Where is she?'
Fiddler groaned. 'No, not again.'
The assassin had both of his long-knives in his hands. 'Hood take her – where is that bitch?'
Bottle, bemused, simply shrugged as the two men chose directions at random and headed off. Idiots. This is what they get, though, isn't it? For telling nobody nothing! About anything! He looked back down at the dolls. Oh my, this is going to be interesting, isn't it…?
'The fool's gone and killed himself,' Captain Sweetcreek said. 'And he took our best healer with him – right through Hood's damned gate!'
Hurlochel stood with crossed arms. 'I don't think-'
'Listen to me,' Sweetcreek snapped, her corporal Futhgar at her side nodding emphatically as she continued. 'I'm now in command, and there' s not a single damned thing in this whole damned world that's going to change-'
She never finished that sentence, as a shriek rang out from the north side of the camp, then the air split with thunderous howls – so close, so loud that Hurlochel felt as if his skull was cracking open.
Ducking, he spun round to see, cartwheeling above tent-roofs, a soldier, his weapon whipping away – and now the sudden snap of guyropes, the earth trembling underfootAnd a monstrous, black, blurred shape appeared, racing like lightning over the ground – straight for them.
A wave of charged air struck the three like a battering ram a moment before the beast reached them. Hurlochel, all breath driven from his lungs, flew through the air, landing hard on one shoulder, then rolling – caught a glimpse of Captain Sweetcreek tossed to one side, limp as a rag doll, and Futhgar seeming to vanish into the dirt as the midnight creature simply ran right over the hapless manThe Hound's eyesOther beasts, bursting through the camp – horses screaming, soldiers shrieking in terror, wagons flung aside before waves of power – and Hurlochel saw one creature – no, impossibleThe world darkened alarmingly as he lay in a heap, paralysed, desperate to draw a breath. The spasm clutching his chest loosed suddenly and sheer joy followed the sweet dusty air down into his lungs.
Nearby, the captain was coughing, on her hands and knees, spitting blood.
From Futhgar, a single piteous groan.
Pushing himself upright, Hurlochel turned – saw the Hounds reach the wall of G'danisban – and stared, eyes wide, as a huge section of that massive barrier exploded, stone and brick facing shooting skyward above a billowing cloud of dust – then the concussion rolled over themA horse galloped past, eyes white with terror'Not us!' Sweetcreek gasped, crawling over. 'Thank the gods – just passing through – just-' She began coughing again.
On watery legs, Hurlochel sank down onto his knees. 'It made no sense,' he whispered, shaking his head, as buildings in the city beyond rocked and blew apart'What?'
He looked across at Sweetcreek. You don't understand – I looked into that black beast's eyes, woman! 'I saw… I saw-'
'What?'
I saw pure terrorThe earth rumbled anew. A resurgence of screams – and he turned, even as five huge shapes appeared, tearing wide, relentless paths through the encamped army – big, bigger than – oh, gods below**** 'He said to wait-' Noto Boil began, then wailed as his horse flinched so hard he would later swear he heard bones breaking, then the beast wheeled from the temple entrance and bolted, peeling the cutter from its back like a wood shaving.
He landed awkwardly, felt and heard ribs crack, the pain vanishing before a more pressing distress, that being the fish spine lodged halfway down his throat.
Choking, sky darkening, eyes bulgingThen the girl hovering over him. Frowning for a lifetime.
Stupid stupid stupidBefore she reached into his gaping mouth, then gently withdrew the spine.
Whimpering behind that first delicious breath, Noto Boil closed his eyes, becoming aware once again that those indrawn breaths in fact delivered stabbing agony across his entire chest. He opened tearfilled eyes.
The girl still loomed over him, but her attention was, it seemed, elsewhere. Not even towards the temple entrance – but down the main avenue.
Where someone was pounding infernal drums, the thunder making the cobbles shiver and jump beneath him – causing yet more pain – And this day started so well…
'Not Soletaken,' Paran was saying to the goddess writhing on her throne, the pierced hand and its otataral spike pinning her here, to this realm, to this dreadful extremity, 'not Soletaken at all, although it might at first seem so. Alas, Poliel, more complicated than that. My outrider's comment earlier, regarding my eyes – well, that was sufficient, and from those howls we just heard, it turns out the timing is about right.'
The captain glanced down once more at the woman on the tiles.
Unconscious, perhaps dead. He didn't think the Hounds would bother with her. Gathering the reins, he straightened in his saddle. 'I can't stay, I'm afraid. But let me leave you with this: you made a terrible mistake. Fortunately, you won't have long to regret it.'
Concussions in the city, coming ever closer.
'Mess with mortals, Poliel,' he said, wheeling his horse round, 'and you pay.'
The man named Brokeface – who had once possessed another name, another life – cowered to one side of the altar chamber's entranceway. The three priests had fled back down the hallway. He was, for the moment, alone. So very alone. All over again. A poor soldier of the rebellion, young and so proud back then – shattered in one single moment.
A Gral horse, a breath thick with the reek of wet grass, teeth like chisels driving down through flesh, through bone, taking everything away. He had become an unwelcome mirror to ugliness, for every face turning upon his own had twisted in revulsion, or worse, morbid fascination. And new fears had sunk deep, hungry roots into his soul, flinching terrors that ever drove him forward, seeking to witness pain and suffering in others, seeking to make of his misery a legion, soldiers to a new cause, each as broken as he.
Poliel had arrived, like a gift – and now that bastard had killed her, was killing her even now – taking everything away. Again.
Horse hoofs skidded on tiles and he shrank back further as the rider and his mount passed through the doorway, the beast lifting from trot to canter down the wide corridor.
Brokeface stared after them with hatred in his eyes.
Lost. All lost.
He looked into the altar chamber**** Quick Ben landed cat-like; then, in the cascade of virulent agony sloughing from the imprisoned goddess not three paces to his right, he collapsed onto his stomach, hands over his head. Oh, very funny, Shadowthrone. He turned his head and saw Torahaval, lying motionless an arm's reach to his left.
Poor girl – I should never have tormented her so. But… show me a merciful child and I will truly avow a belief in miracles, and I'll throw in my back-pay besides. It was her over-sensitivity that done her in. Still, what's life without a few thousand regrets?
There was otataral in this room. He needed to collect her and drag her clear, back outside. Not so hard, once he was out of this chaotic madhouse. So, it turned out – to his astonishment – that Shadowthrone had played it true.
It was then that he heard the howl of the Hounds, in thundering echo from the hallway.
Paran emerged from the tunnel then sawed his horse hard to the left, narrowly avoiding Shan – the huge black beast plunging past, straight into the Grand Temple. Rood followed, then Baran – and in Baran's enormous jaws a hissing, reptilian panther, seeking to slow its captor down with unsheathed talons scoring the cobbles, to no avail. In their wake, Blind and Gear.
As Gear raced into the temple, the Hound loosed a howl, a sound savage with glee – as of some long-awaited vengeance moments from consummation.
Paran stared after them for a moment, then saw Noto Boil, lying down, the nameless girl hovering over him. 'For Hood's sake,' he snapped. '
There's no time for that – get him on his feet. Soliel, we're now going to your temple. Boil, where in the Abyss is your horse?'
Straightening, the girl looked back up the street. 'My sister's death approaches,' she said.
The captain followed her gaze. And saw the first of the Deragoth.
Oh, I started all this, didn't I?
Behind them the temple shook to a massive, wall-cracking concussion.
'Time to go!'
Quick Ben grasped his sister by the hood of her robe, began dragging her towards the back of the chamber, already realizing it was pointless. The Hounds had come for him, and he was in a chamber suffused with otataral.
Shadowthrone never played fair, and the wizard had to admit he'd been outwitted this time. And this time's about to be my lastHe heard claws rushing closer down the hallway and looked up**** Brokeface stared at the charging beast. A demon. A thing of beauty, of purity. And for him, there was nothing else, nothing left. Yes, let beauty slay me.
He stepped into the creature's pathAnd was shouldered aside, hard enough to crack his head against the wall, momentarily stunning him. He lost his footing and fell on his backside – darkness, swirling, billowing shadowsEven as the demon loomed above him, he saw another figure, lithe, clothed entirely in black, knife-blades slashing out, cutting deep along the beast's right shoulder.
The demon shrieked – pain, outrage – as, skidding, it twisted round to face this new attacker.
Who was no longer there, who was somehow now on its opposite side, limbs weaving, every motion strangely blurred to Brokeface's wide, staring eyes. The knives licked out once more. Flinching back, the demon came up against the wall opposite, ember eyes flaring.
From down the hallway, more demons were approaching, yet slowing their ferocious pace, claws clatteringAs the figure moved suddenly among them. The gleam of the blades, now red, seemed to dance in the air, here, there, wheeling motion from the figure, arms writhing like serpents; and with matching grace, he saw a foot lash out, connect with a beast's head – which was as big as a horse's, only wider – and that head snapped round at the impact, shoulders following, then torso, twisting round in strange elegance as the entire demon was lifted into the air, back-end now vertical, head down, in time to meet the side wall.
Where bricks exploded, the wall crumpling, caving in to some room beyond, the demon's body following into the cloud of dust.
Wild, crowded confusion in the hallway, and suddenly the figure stood motionless at Brokeface's side, daggers still out, dripping blood.
A woman, black-haired, now blocking the doorway.
Skittering sounds along the tiles, and he looked down to see two small, bird-like skeletons flanking her. Their snouts were open and hissing sounds emerged from those empty throats. Spiny tails lashed back and forth. One darted forward, a single hop, head dippingAnd the gathered demons flinched back.
Another reptilian hiss, this one louder – coming from a creature trapped in one demon's jaws. Brokeface saw in its terrible eyes a deathly fear, rising to panicThe woman spoke quietly, clearly addressing Brokeface: 'Follow the wizard and his sister – they found a bolt-hole behind the dais – enough time, I think, to make good their escape. And yours, if you go now.'
'I don't want to,' he said, unable to keep from weeping. 'I just want to die.'
That turned her gaze from the demons facing her.
He looked up into exquisite, elongated eyes, black as ebony. And in her face, there was no mirror, no twist of revulsion. No, naught but a simple regard, and then, something that might have been… sorrow.
'Go to the Temple of Soliel,' she said.
'She is ever turned away-'
'Not today she isn't. Not with Ganoes Paran holding her by the scruff of her neck. Go. Be healed.'
This was impossible, but how could he deny her? 'Hurry, I don't know how Curdle and Telorast are managing this threat, and there's no telling how long it will last-'
Even as she said those words, a bellowing roar came from further down the hallway, and the demons bunched close before the threshold, yelping in desperate frenzy.
'That's it,' she murmured, lifting her knives.
Brokeface leapt to his feet and ran into the altar chamber.
Disbelief. Quick Ben could not understand what had held the Hounds up – he'd caught sounds, of fighting, fierce, snapping snarls, squeals of pain, and in one glance back, moments before carrying Torahaval through the back passage, he'd thought he'd seen… something.
Someone, ghostly in shadows, commanding the threshold.
Whatever this chance clash, it had purchased his life. And his sister' s. Currency Quick Ben would not squander.
Throwing Torahaval over his shoulder, he entered the narrow corridor and ran as fast as he could manage.
Before too long he heard someone in pursuit. Swearing, Quick Ben swung round, the motion crunching Torahaval's head against a wall – at which she moaned.
A man, his face deformed – no, horse-bitten, the wizard realized – rushed to close. 'I will help you,' he said. 'Quickly! Doom comes into this temple!'
Had it been this man facing down the Hounds? No matter. 'Take her legs then, friend. As soon as we're off sanctified ground, we can get the Hood out of here-'
As the Hounds gathered to rush Apsalar, she sheathed her knives and said, 'Curdle, Telorast, stop your hissing. Time to leave.'
'You're no fun, Not-Apsalar!' Curdle cried.
'No she isn't, is she?' Telorast said, head bobbing in vague threat motions, that were now proving less effective.
'Where is she?' Curdle demanded.
'Gone!'
'Without us!'
'After her!'
Poliel, Grey Goddess of pestilence, of disease and suffering, was trapped in her own tortured nightmare. All strength gone, all will bled away. The shard of deadly otataral impaling her hand, she sat on her throne, convulsions racking her.
Betrayals, too many betrayals – the Crippled God's power had fled, abandoning her – and that unknown mortal, that cold-eyed murderer, who had understood nothing. In whose name? For whose liberation was this war being fought? The damned fool.
What curse was it, in the end, to see flaws unveiled, to see the twisted malice of mortals dragged to the surface, exposed to day's light? Who among these followers did not ever seek, wilful or mindless, the purity of self-destruction? In obsession they took death into themselves, but that was but a paltry reflection of the death they delivered upon the land, the water, the very air. Selfdestruction making victim the entire world.
Apocalypse is rarely sudden; no, among these mortals, it creeps slow, yet inevitable, relentless in its thorough obliteration of life, of health, of beauty.
Diseased minds and foul souls had drawn her into this world; for the sake of the land, for the chance that it might heal in the absence of its cruellest inflicters of pain and degradation, she sought to expunge them in the breath of plague – no more deserving a fate was imaginable – for all that, she would now die.
She railed. Betrayal!.
Five Hounds of Shadow entered the chamber.
Her death. Shadowthrone, you fool.
A Hound flung something from its mouth, something that skidded, spitting and writhing, up against the first step of the dais.
Even in her agony, a core of clarity remained within Poliel. She looked down, seeking to comprehend – even as the Hounds fled the room, round the dais, into the priest-hole – comprehend this cowering, scaled panther, one limb swollen with infection, its back legs and hips crushed – it could not flee. The Hounds had abandoned it here – why?
Ah, to share my fate.
A final thought, meekly satisfying in itself, as the Deragoth arrived, bristling with rage and hunger, Elder as any god, deprived of one quarry, but content to kill what remained.
A broken T'rolbarahl, shrieking its terror and fury.
A broken goddess, who had sought to heal Burn. For such was the true purpose of fever, such was the cold arbiter of disease. Only humans, she reminded herself – her last thought – only humans centre salvation solely upon themselves.
And then the Deragoth, the first enslavers of humanity, were upon her.
'She's a carrier now,' Brokeface said, 'and more. No longer protected, the plague runs wild within her, no matter what happens to Poliel.
Once begun, these things follow their own course. Please,' he added as he watched the man attempt to awaken Torahaval, 'come with me.'
The stranger looked up with helpless eyes. 'Come? Where?'
'The Temple of Soliel.'
'That indifferent bitch-'
'Please,' Brokeface insisted. 'You will see. I cannot help but believe her words.'
'Whose words?'
'It's not far. She must be healed.' And he reached down once more, collecting the woman's legs. 'As before. It's not far.'
The man nodded.
Behind them, a single shriek rose from the temple, piercing enough to send fissures rippling through the building's thick walls, dust snapping out from the cracks. Groaning sounds pushed up from beneath them as foundations buckled, tugging at the surrounding streets.
'We must hurry away!' Brokeface said.
Dismounting, dragging a stumbling, gasping Noto Boil with one hand, Paran kicked down the doors to the Temple of Soliel – a modest but most satisfying burst of power that was sufficient, he trusted, to apprise the Sweet Goddess of his present frame of mind.
The girl slipped past him as he crossed the threshold and cast him a surprisingly delighted glance as she hurried ahead to the central chamber.
On the corridor's walls, paintings of figures kneeling, heads bowed in blessing, beseeching or despair – likely the latter with this damned goddess, Paran decided. Depending in folds from the arched ceiling were funeral shrouds, no doubt intended to prepare worshippers for the worst.
They reached the central chamber even as the ground shook – the Grand Temple was collapsing. Paran pulled Noto Boil to his side, then pushed him stumbling towards the altar. With luck it'll bury the damned Deragoth. But I'm not holding my breath.
He drew out a card and tossed it onto the floor. 'Soliel, you are summoned.'
The girl, who had been standing to the right of the altar, suddenly sagged, then looked up, blinking owlishly. Her smile broadened.
Paran vowed, then, that he would seek to recall every detail of the goddess's upon her enforced appearance, so exquisite her bridling fury. She stood behind the altar, as androgynous as her now-dead sister, her long fingers – so perfect for closing eyelids over unseeing eyes – clutching, forming fists at her side, as she said in a grating voice, 'You have made a terrible mistake-'
'I'm not finished yet,' he replied. 'Unleash your power, Soliel. Begin the healing. You can start with Noto Boil here, in whom you shall place a residue of your power, sufficient in strength and duration to effect the healing of the afflicted in the encamped army outside the city. Once you are done with him, others will arrive, Poliel's castoffs. Heal them as well, and send them out-' His voice hardened. '
Seven Cities has suffered enough, Soliel.'
She seemed to study him for a long moment, then she shrugged. 'Very well. As for suffering, I leave that to you, and through no choice of mine.'
Paran frowned, then turned at a surprised shout from behind them.
The captain blinked, and grinned. 'Quick Ben!'
The wizard and Brokeface were dragging a woman between them – the one he had last seen in the altar chamber of the Grand Temple – and all at once, Paran understood. Then, immediately thereafter, realized that he understood… nothing.
Quick Ben looked up at the altar and his eyes narrowed. 'That her?
Hood's breath, I never thought… never mind. Ganoes Paran, this was all by your hand? Did you know the Hounds were for me?'
'Not entirely, although I see how you might think that way. You bargained with Shadowthrone, didn't you? For,' he gestured at the unconscious woman, 'her.'
The wizard scowled. 'My sister.'
'He has released the Deragoth,' Soliel said, harsh and accusory. 'They tore her apart!'
Quick Ben's sister moaned, tried gathering her legs under her.
'Shit,' the wizard muttered. 'I'd better leave. Back to the others.
Before she comes round.'
Paran sighed and crossed his arms. 'Really, Quick-'
'You more than anybody should know about a sister's wrath!' the wizard snapped, stepping away. He glanced over at Brokeface, who stood, transfixed, staring up at Soliel. 'Go on,' he said. 'You were right.
Go to her.'
With a faint whimper, Brokeface stumbled forward.
Paran watched as Quick Ben opened a warren.
The wizard hesitated, looked over at the captain. 'Ganoes,' he said, ' tell me something.'
'What?'
'Tavore. Can we trust her?'
The question felt like a slap, stinging, sudden. He blinked, studied the man, then said, 'Tavore will do, wizard, what needs to be done.'
'To suit her or her soldiers?' Quick Ben demanded.
'For her, friend, there is no distinction.'
Their gazes locked for a moment longer, then the wizard sighed. 'I owe you a tankard of ale when it's all over.'
'I will hold you to it, Quick.'
The wizard flashed that memorable, infuriating grin, and vanished into the portal.
As it whispered shut behind him, the woman, his sister, lifted herself to her hands and knees. Her hair hung down, obscuring her face, but Paran could hear her clearly as she said, 'There was a wolf.'
He cocked his head. 'A Hound of Shadow.'
'A wolf,' she said again. 'The loveliest, sweetest wolf in the world…'
Quick Ben opened his eyes and looked around.
Bottle sat across from him, the only one present in the clearing. From somewhere nearby there was shouting, angry, sounds of rising violence.
'Nicely done,' Bottle said. 'Shadowthrone threw you right into their path, so much of you that, had the Hounds caught you, I'd now be burying this carcass of yours. You used his warren to get here. Very nice – a thread must've survived, wizard, one even Shadowthrone didn't see.'
'What's going on?'
The soldier shrugged. 'Old argument, I think. Kalam and Fiddler found Apsalar – with blood on her knives. They figure you're dead, you see, though why-'
Quick Ben was already on his feet. And running.
The scene he came upon moments later was poised on the very edge of disaster. Kalam was advancing on Apsalar, his long-knives out, the otataral blade in the lead position. Fiddler stood to one side, looking both angry and helpless.
And Apsalar. She simply faced the burly, menacing assassin. No knives in her hands and something like resignation in her expression.
'Kalam!'
The man whirled, as did Fiddler.
'Quick!' the sapper shouted. 'We found her! Blood on the blades – and you-'
'Enough of all that,' the wizard said. 'Back away from her, Kalam.'
The assassin shrugged, then scabbarded his weapons. 'She wasn't big on explanations,' he said in a frustrated growl. 'As usual. And I would swear, Quick, she was wanting this-'
'Wanting what?' he demanded. 'Did she have her knives out? Is she in a fighting stance, Kalam? Is she not a Shadow Dancer? You damned idiot!'
He glared at Apsalar, and in a lower voice, added, 'What she wants… ain't for us to give…'
Boots on stones sounded behind him, and Quick Ben swung round to see Bottle, at his side Captain Faradan Sort.
'There you all are,' the captain said, clearly struggling to keep her curiosity in check. 'We're about to march. With luck, we'll reach the Fourteenth this night. Sinn seems to think so, anyway.'
'That's good news,' Quick Ben said. 'Lead on, Captain, we're right with you.'
Yet he held back, until Apsalar walked past him, then he reached out and brushed her sleeved arm.
She looked over.
Quick Ben hesitated, then nodded and said, 'I know it was you, Apsalar. Thank you.'
'Wizard,' she said, 'I have no idea what you are talking about.'
He let her go. No, what she wants ain't for us to give. She wants to die.
Layered in dust, wan with exhaustion, Cotillion strode into the throne room, then paused.
The Hounds were gathered before the Shadow Throne, two lying down, panting hard, tongues lolling. Shan paced in a circle, the black beast twitching, its flanks slashed and dripping blood. And, Cotillion realized, there were wounds on the others as well.
On the throne sat Shadowthrone, his form blurred as if within a roiling storm-cloud. 'Look at them,' he said in a low, menacing voice.
'Look well, Cotillion.'
'The Deragoth?'
'No, not the Deragoth.'
'No, I suppose not. Those look like knife cuts.'
'I had him. Then I lost him.'
'Had who?'
'That horrid little thousand-faced wizard, that's who!' A shadowy hand lifted, long fingers curling. 'I had him, here in this very palm, like a melting piece of ice.' A sudden snarl, the god tilting forward on the throne. 'It's all your fault!'
Cotillion blinked. 'Hold on, I didn't attack the Hounds!'
'That's what you think!'
'What is that supposed to mean?' Cotillion demanded.
The other hand joined the first one, hovering, clutching the air in spasmodic, trembling rage. Then another snarl – and the god vanished.
Cotillion looked down at Baran, reached out towards the beast.
At a low growl, he snatched his hand back. 'I didn't!' he shouted.
The Hounds, one and all staring at him, did not look convinced.
Dusk muted the dust in the air above the camp as Captain Ganoes Paran – leading his horse – and the cutter Noto Boil, and the girl – whose name was Naval D'natha – climbed the slope and passed through the first line of pickets.
The entire camp looked as if it had been struck by a freak storm.
Soldiers worked on repairing tents, re-splicing ropes, carrying stretchers. Horses loose from their paddocks still wandered about, too skittish to permit anyone close enough to take their bits.
'The Hounds,' Paran said. 'They came through here. As did, I suspect, the Deragoth. Damned unfortunate – I hope there weren't too many injuries.'
Noto Boil glanced over at him, then sneered. 'Captain Kindly? You have deceived us. Ganoes Paran, a name to be found on the List of the Fallen in Dujek's own logs.'
'A name with too many questions hanging off it, cutter.'
'Do you realize, Captain, that the two remaining Malazan armies in Seven Cities are commanded by brother and sister? For the moment at least. Once Dujek's back on his feet-'
'A moment,' Paran said.
Hurlochel and Sweetcreek were standing outside the command tent. Both had seen Paran and his companions.
Something in the outrider's face…
They reached them. 'Hurlochel?' Paran asked.
The man looked down.
Sweetcreek cleared her throat. 'High Fist Dujek Onearm died two bells ago, Captain Paran.'
'As for suffering, I leave that to you, and through no choice of mine.'
She had known. Soliel had already known.
Sweetcreek was still talking, '… fever broke a short while ago.
They're conscious, they've been told who you are – Ganoes Paran, are you listening to me? They've read Dujek's logs – every officer among us has read them. It was required. Do you understand? The vote was unanimous. We have proclaimed you High Fist. This is now your army.'
She had known.
All he had done here… too late.
Dujek Onearm is dead.