It may have been his imagination, but Duiker thought he could hear the harsh laughter of a god.
There was no shortage of spikes, yet it took a day and a half before the last screaming prisoner was nailed to the last crowded cedar lining Aren Way.
Ten thousand dead and dying Malazans stared down on that wide, exquisitely engineered Imperial road—eyes unseeing or eyes uncomprehending—it made little difference.
Duiker was the last, the rusty iron spikes driven through his wrists and upper arms to hold him in place high on the tree's blood-streaked bole. More spikes were hammered through his ankles and the muscles of his outer thighs.
The pain was unlike anything the historian had ever known before. Yet even worse was the knowledge that that pain would accompany his entire final journey down into eventual unconsciousness, and with it—an added trauma—were the images burned into him: almost forty hours of being driven on foot up Aren Way, watching each and every one of those ten thousand soldiers joined to the mass crucifixion in a chain of suffering stretching over three leagues, each link scores of men and women nailed to every tree, to every available space on those tall, broad trunks.
The historian was well beyond shock when his turn finally came, as the last soldier to close the human chain, and he was dragged to the tree, up the scaffolding, pushed against the ridged bark, arms forced outward, feeling the cold bite of the iron spikes pressed against his skin, and then, when the mallets swung, the explosion of pain that loosed his bowels, leaving him stained and writhing. The greatest pain arrived when the scaffolding dropped from under him, and his full weight fell onto the pinning spikes. Until that moment, he had truly believed he had gone as far into agony as was humanly possible.
He was wrong.
After what seemed like an eternity when the ceaseless shrieking of his sundered flesh had drowned out all else within him, a cool, calm clarity emerged, and thoughts, scattered and wandering, rose into his fading awareness.
The Jaghut ghost… why do I think of him now? Of that eternity of grief? What is he to me? What is anyone or anything to me, now? I await Hood's Gate at last—the time for memories, for regrets and comprehensions is past. You must see that now, old man. Your nameless marine awaits you, and Bull and Corporal List, and Lull and Sulwar and Mincer. Kulp and Heboric, too, most likely. You leave a place of strangers now, and go to a place of companions, of friends.
So claim the priests of Hood.
It's the last gift. I am done with this world, for I am alone in it. Alone.
A ghostly, tusked face rose before his mind's eye, and though he had never before seen it, he knew that the ]aghut had found him. The gravest compassion filled that creature's unhuman eyes, a compassion that Duiker could not understand.
Why grieve, Jaghut? I shall not haunt eternity as you have done. I shall not return to this place, nor suffer again the losses a mortal suffers in life, and in living. Hood is about to bless me, Jaghut—no need to grieve…
Those thoughts echoed only a moment longer, as the Jaghut's ravaged face faded and darkness closed in around the historian, closed in until it swallowed him.
And with it, awareness ceased.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Laseen sent Tavore Rushing across the seas to clasp Coltaine's hand And closing her fingers She held crow-picked bones.
The Sha'ik
UprisingWu
Kalam threw himself into the shadows at the base of a low, battered wall, then dragged the still-warm corpse half over him. He ducked his head down, then lay still, battling to slow his breathing.
A few moments later, light footfalls sounded on the street's cobbles. A voice hissed an angry halt.
'They pursued,' another hunter whispered. 'And he ambushed them—here. Gods! What kind of man is he?'
A third Claw spoke, a woman. 'He can't be far away—'
'Of course he's close,' snapped the leader who had first called the halt. 'He doesn't have wings, does he? He's not immortal, he's not immune to the charms of our blades—no more such mutterings, do you two hear me? Now spread out—you, up that side, and you, up the other.' Sorcery cast its cold breath. 'I'll stay in the middle,' the leader said.
Aye, and unseen, meaning you re first, bastard.
Kalam listened as the other two headed off. He knew the pattern they would assume, the two flankers moving ahead, the leader—hidden in sorcery—hanging back, eyes flicking between the two hunters, scanning alley mouths, rooftops, a rib-less crossbow in each hand. Kalam waited a moment longer, then slowly, silently slipped free of the corpse and rose into a crouch.
He padded into the street, his bare feet making no sound. To someone who knew what to look for, the bloom of darkness edging forward twenty paces ahead was just discernible. Not an easy spell to maintain, it was inevitably weaker to the rear, and Kalam could make out a hint of the figure moving within it.
He closed the distance like a charging leopard. One of Kalam's elbows connected with the base of the leader's skull, killing him instantly. He caught one of the crossbows before it struck the cobbles, but the other eluded him, clattering and skittering on the street. Silently cursing, the assassin continued his charge, angling right, towards an alley mouth twenty paces behind the flanker on that side.
He dived at the muted snap of a crossbow and felt the quarrel rip through his cloak. Then he was rolling into the alley's narrow confines, sliding on rotted vegetables. Rats scattered from his path as he regained his feet and darted into deeper shadows.
An alcove loomed on his left and he spun, backed into its gloom and pulled free his own crossbow. Doubly armed, he waited.
A figure edged into view and paused opposite him, no more than six feet away.
The woman ducked and twisted even as Kalam fired—and the assassin knew he had missed. Her dagger, however, did not. The blade, flashing out from her hand, thudded as it struck him just beneath his right clavicle. A second thrown weapon—an iron star—embedded itself in the alcove's wooden door beside Kalam's face.
He pressed the release on the second crossbow. The quarrel took her low in the belly. She tumbled back and was dead of the White Paralt before she stopped moving.
Kalam was not—the weapon jutting from his chest must be clean. He sank down, laying the two crossbows on the ground, then reached up and withdrew the knife, reversing grip.
He'd already used up his other weapons, although he still retained the tongs and the small sack of cloth-tacks.
The last hunter was close, waiting for Kalam to make another break—and the man knew precisely where he hid. The body lying opposite was the clearest indication of that.
Now what?
The right-hand side of his shirt was wet and sticky, and he could feel the heat of the blood streaming down his body on that side. It was his third minor wound of the night—a throwing star had found his back during the next-to-last skirmish. Such weapons were never poisoned—too risky for the thrower, even when gloved. The heavy apron had absorbed most of the impact, and he'd scraped the star off against a wall.
His mental discipline in slowing the flow of blood from the various wounds was close to tatters. He was weakening. Fast.
Kalam looked straight up. The underside of a wooden balcony was directly overhead, the two paint-chipped braces about seven and a half feet above the ground. A jump might allow him to reach one, but that would be a noisy affair, and success would leave him helpless.
He drew the tongs from their loop. Gripping the bloody knife in his teeth, he slowly straightened, reaching up with the tongs. They closed over the brace.
Now, will the damned thing hold my weight?
Gripping the handles hard, he cautiously tensed his shoulders, drew himself up an inch, then another. The brace did not so much as groan—and he realized that the wooden beam in all likelihood extended into a deep socket in the stone wall itself. He continued pulling himself upward.
The challenge was maintaining silence, for any rustle or whisper of noise would aler
t his hunter. Arms and shoulders trembling, Kalam drew his legs up, a fraction at a time, tucked his right leg even higher, then edged it, foot first, through the triangular gap above the brace.
He hooked that leg, pulled, and was finally able to ease the strain on his arms and shoulders.
Kalam hung there, motionless, for a long minute. Claws liked waiting games. They excelled in contests of patience. His hunter had evidently concluded that this was one of those games, and he intended to win it. Well, stranger, I don't play by your rules. He slipped the tongs free, held them out and lifted them towards the balcony's floor. This was the greatest risk, since he had no idea what occupied that floor above him. He probed with the tongs in minute increments until he could reach no farther, then he lowered the tool down and left it there.
The knife stayed clenched between his teeth, filling his mouth with the taste of his own blood. With both hands freed, Kalam gripped the balcony's ledge, slowly pulled his weight away from the brace and drew himself up. Hands climbing the railings, he swung a leg over and, a moment later, crouched on the balcony floor, the tongs at his feet.
He scanned the area. Clay pots housing various herbs, a moulded bread oven on a foundation of bricks occupying one end, the heat radiating from it reaching the assassin's sweat-cooled face.
A barred hatch that a person would have to crawl to get through offered the only way into the room beyond.
His scan ended upon meeting the eyes of a small dog crouched at the end opposite the bread oven. Black-haired, compactly muscled and with a foxlike snout and ears, the creature was chewing on half a rat, and as it chewed it watched Kalam's every move with those sharp, black eyes.
Kalam released a very soft sigh. Another dubious claim to fame for Malaz City: the Malazan ratter, bred for its fearless insanity. There was no predicting what the dog would do once it had decided its meal was done. It might lick his hand. It might bite his nose off.
He watched it sniff at the mangled meat between its paws, then gobble it up, chewing overlong as it considered Kalam. Then it ate the rat's tail, choking briefly—the sound barely a whisper—before managing to swallow its length.
The ratter licked its forepaws, rose into a sitting position, ducked its head to lick elsewhere, then stood facing the bleeding assassin.
The barking exploded in the night air, a frenzy that had the ratter bouncing around with the effort.
Kalam leapt up onto the balcony rail. A blur of motion darted beneath him, down in the alley. He plunged straight for it, the throwing knife in his left hand.
Even as he dropped through the air, he was sure he was finished. His lone hunter had found allies—another entire Hand.
Sorcery flared upward to strike Kalam like a massive fist. The knife flew from nerveless fingers. Twisting, his trajectory knocked awry by the mage's attack, he missed his target and struck the cobbles hard on his left side.
The maniacal barking overhead continued unabated.
Kalam's intended target charged him, blades flashing. He drew his legs up and kicked out, but the man slipped past with a deft motion. The knife blade scored against Kalam's ribs on either side. The hunter's forehead cracked against his nose. Light exploded behind the assassin's eyes.
A moment later, as the hunter reared back, straddling Kalam, and raised both knives, a snarling black bundle landed on the man's head. He shrieked as razorlike, overlong canines ripped open one side of his face.
Kalam caught one wrist, snapped it and pulled the knife from the spasming hand.
The hunter was desperately stabbing at the ratter with the other knife, without much luck, then he threw the weapon away and reached for the writhing dog.
Kalam sank his knife into the hunter's heart.
Pushing the body aside, he staggered upright—to find himself surrounded.
'You can call your dog off, Kalam,' a woman said.
He glanced down at the animal—it hadn't slowed. Blood spattered the cobbles around the corpse's head and neck.
'Alas,' Kalam growled. 'Not mine… though I wish I had a hundred of the beasts.' The pain of his shattered nose throbbed. Tears streamed from his eyes, joining the flow of blood dripping from his lips and chin.
'Oh, for Hood's sake!' The woman turned to one of her hunters. 'Kill the damned thing—'
'Not necessary,' Kalam said, stepping over. He reached down, grabbed the creature by its scruff and lobbed it back towards the balcony. The ratter yelped, just clearing the rail, then vanished from sight. A wild skitter of claws announced its landing.
A wavering voice reached down from the balcony's hatch. 'Flower, darling, settle down now, there's a good boy.'
Kalam eyed the leader. 'All right, then,' he said. 'Finish it.'
'With pleasure—'
The quarrel's impact threw her into Kalam's arms, almost skewering him on the great barbed point jutting from her chest. The four remaining hunters dived for cover, not knowing what had arrived, as horse hooves crashed in the alley.
Kalam gaped to see his stallion charging for him and, crouched low over the saddle and swinging back the clawfoot on the Marine-issue crossbow, Minala.
The assassin stepped aside a split second before being trampled, grasped an edge of the saddle and let the animal's momentum swing him up behind Minala. She thrust the crossbow into his hands. 'Cover us!'
Twisting, he saw four shapes in pursuit. Kalam fired. The hunters pitched down to the ground as one. The quarrel careened off a wall and skittered away into the darkness.
The alley opened onto a street. Minala wheeled the stallion to the left. Hooves skidded, spraying sparks. Righting itself, the horse bolted forward.
Malaz City's harbour district was a tangle of narrow, twisting streets and alleys, seemingly impossible for a horse at full gallop, in the dead of night. The next few minutes marked the wildest ride Kalam had ever known. Minala's skill was breathtaking.
After a short while, Kalam leaned close to her. 'Where in Hood's name are you taking us? The whole city's crawling with Claws, woman—'
'I know, damn you!'
She guided the stallion across a wooden bridge. Looking up, the assassin saw the upper district and, beyond it, a looming black shape: the cliff—and Mock's Hold.
'Minala!'
'You wanted the Empress, right? Well, you bastard, she's right there—in Mock's Hold!'
Oh, Hood's shadow!
The tiles gave way without a sound. Cold blackness swallowed the four travellers.
The drop ended abruptly, in a bone-jarring impact with smooth, polished flagstones.
Groaning, Fiddler sat up, the sack of munitions still strapped to his shoulders. He'd injured his barely healed ankle in the fall and the pain was excruciating. Teeth clenched, he looked around. The others were all in one piece, it seemed, slowly clambering to their feet.
They were in a round room, a perfect match to the one they had left in Tremorlor. For a moment, the sapper feared they had simply returned there, but then he smelled salt in the air.
'We're here,' he said. 'Deadhouse.'
'What makes you so sure?' Crokus demanded.
Fiddler crawled over to a wall and levered himself upright. He tested the leg, winced. 'I smell Malaz Bay—and feel how damp the air is. This ain't Tremorlor, lad.'
'But we might be in any House, in any place beside a bay—'
'We might,' the sapper conceded.
'It's simply a matter of finding out,' Apsalar said reasonably. 'You've hurt your ankle again, Fiddler.'
'Aye. I wish Mappo was here with his elixirs…'
'Can you walk?' Crokus asked.
'Not much choice.'
Apsalar's father approached the stair, looked down. 'Someone's home,' he said. 'I see lantern light.'
'Oh, that's just wonderful,' Crokus muttered, unsheathing his knives.
'Put "em away,' Fiddler said. 'Either we're guests or we're dead. Let's go introduce ourselves, shall we?'
Descending to the main floor—with Fiddler le
aning hard on the Daru—they passed through an open door into the hallway. Lanterns glowed in niches along its length, and the flicker of firelight issued from the open double doors opposite the entranceway.
As at Tremorlor, a massive suit of armour filled an alcove halfway down the hall's length, and this one had seen serious battle.
The group paused to regard it briefly, in silence, before continuing on to the opened doors.
Apsalar leading, they entered the main chamber. The flames in the stone fireplace seemed to be burning without fuel, and a strange blackness around its edges revealed it as a small portal, opened onto a warren of ceaseless fire.
A figure, its back to them, stood staring into those flames. Dressed in faded ochre robes, the man was solid, broad-shouldered and at least seven feet tall. A long, iron-hued ponytail swept down between his shoulders, bound just above the small of his back with a dull length of chain.
Without turning, the guardian spoke in a low, rumbling voice. 'Your failure in taking Icarium has been noted.'
Fiddler grunted. 'In the end, it was not up to us. Mappo—'
'Oh yes, Mappo,' the guardian cut in. 'The Trell. He has walked at Icarium's side too long, it seems. There are duties that surpass friendship. The Elders scarred him deep when they destroyed an entire settlement and laid the blame at Icarium's feet. They imagined that would suffice. A Watcher was needed, desperately. The one who had held that responsibility before had taken his own life. For months Icarium walked the land alone, and the threat was too great.'
The words reached into Fiddler, tore at his insides. No, Mappo believes Icarium destroyed his home, murdered his family, everyone he knew. No, how could you have done that?
'The Azath has worked towards this taking for a long time, mortals.' The man turned then. Huge tusks framed his thin mouth, jutting from his lower lip. The greenish cast of his weathered skin made him look ghostly, despite the hearth's warm light. Eyes the colour of dirty ice regarded them.
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