House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  And it had driven him mad. He understood that now. The voices, the paralysing uncertainty, the way he was always cold, shivering, no matter how hot the daytime sun or how highly banked the nightly hearths. And the weakness, stealing through his limbs, thinning the blood in his veins, until it felt as if his heart was pumping muddy water. I have been broken. I failed the Adjunct with my very first test of mettle.

  Keneb would be all right. Keneb was a good choice as the legion’s new Fist. He was not too old, and he had a family—people to fight for, to return to, people that mattered in his life. Those were important things. A necessary pressure, fire for the blood. None of which existed in Gamet’s life.

  She has certainly never needed me, has she? The family tore itself apart, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was only a castellan, a glorified house guard. Taking orders. Even when a word from me could have changed Felisin’s fate, I just saluted and said, ‘Yes, mistress.’

  But he had always known his own weakness of spirit. And there had been no shortage of opportunities in which he could demonstrate his flaws, his failures. No shortage at all, even if she saw those moments as ones displaying loyalty, as disciplined acceptance of orders no matter how horrendous their outcome.

  ‘Loud.’

  A new voice. Blinking, he looked around, then down, to see Keneb’s adopted whelp, Grub. Half naked, sun-darkened skin smeared with dirt, his hair a wild tangle, his eyes glittering in the starlight.

  ‘Loud.’

  ‘Yes, they are.’ The child was feral. It was late, maybe even nearing dawn. What was he doing up? What was he doing out here, beyond the camp’s pickets, inviting butchery by a desert raider?

  ‘Not they. It.’

  Gamet frowned down at him. ‘What are you talking about? What’s loud?’ All I hear is voices—you can’t hear them. Of course you can’t.

  ‘The sandstorm. Roars. Very . . . very . . . very very very LOUD!’

  The storm? Gamet wiped grit from his eyes and looked around—to find himself not fifty paces from the Whirlwind Wall. And the sound of sand, racing between rocks on the ground, hissing skyward in wild, cavorting loops, the pebbles clattering here and there, the wind itself whirling through sculpted folds in the limestone—the sound was like . . . like voices. Screaming, angry voices. ‘I am not mad.’

  ‘Me neither. I’m happy. Father has a new shiny ring. Around his arm. It’s all carved. He’s supposed to give more orders, but he gives less. But I’m still happy. It’s very shiny. Do you like shiny things? I do, even though they hurt my eyes. Maybe it’s because they hurt my eyes. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think much of anything any more, lad.’

  ‘I think you do too much.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Father thinks the same. You think about things there’s no point in thinking about. It makes no difference. But I know why you do.’

  ‘You do?’

  The lad nodded. ‘The same reason I like shiny things. Father’s looking for you. I’m going to go tell him I found you.’

  Grub ambled away, quickly vanishing in the darkness.

  Gamet turned and stared up at the Whirlwind Wall. Its rage buffeted him. The whirling sand tore at his eyes, snatched at his breath. It was hungry, had always been hungry, but something new had arrived, altering its shrill timbre. What is it? An urgency, a tone fraught with . . . something.

  What am I doing here?

  Now he remembered. He had come looking for death. A raider’s blade across his throat. Quick and sudden, if not entirely random.

  An end to thinking all those thoughts . . . that so hurt my eyes.

  The growing thunder of horse hoofs roused him once more, and he turned to see two riders emerge from the gloom, leading a third horse.

  ‘We’ve been searching half the night,’ Fist Keneb said as they reined in. ‘Temul has a third of his Wickans out—all looking for you, sir.’

  Sir? That’s inappropriate. ‘Your child had no difficulty in finding me.’

  Keneb frowned beneath the rim of his helm. ‘Grub? He came here?’

  ‘He said he was off to tell you he’d found me.’

  The man snorted. ‘Unlikely. He’s yet to say a word to me. Not even in Aren. I’ve heard he talks to others, when the mood takes him, and that’s rare enough. But not me. And no, I don’t know why. In any case, we’ve brought your horse. The Adjunct is ready.’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  To unsheathe her sword, sir. To breach the Whirlwind Wall.’

  ‘She need not wait for me, Fist.’

  ‘True, but she chooses to none the less.’

  I don’t want to.

  ‘She has commanded it, sir.’

  Gamet sighed, walked over to the horse. He was so weak, he had trouble pulling himself onto the saddle. The others waited with maddening patience. Face burning with both effort and shame, Gamet finally clambered onto the horse, spent a moment searching for the stirrups, then took the reins from Temul. ‘Lead on,’ he growled to Keneb.

  They rode parallel to the wall of roaring sand, eastward, maintaining a respectable distance. Two hundred paces along they rode up to a party of five sitting motionless on their horses. The Adjunct, Tene Baralta, Blistig, Nil and Nether.

  Sudden fear gripped Gamet. ‘Adjunct! A thousand warriors could be waiting on the other side! We need the army drawn up. We need heavy infantry on the flanks. Outriders—archers—marines—’

  ‘That will be enough, Gamet. We ride forward now—the sun already lights the wall. Besides, can you not hear it? Its shriek is filled with fear. A new sound. A pleasing sound.’

  He stared up at the swirling barrier of sand. Yes, that is what I could sense earlier. ‘Then it knows its barrier shall fail.’

  ‘The goddess knows,’ Nether agreed.

  Gamet glanced at the two Wickans. They looked miserable, a state that seemed more or less permanent with them these days. ‘What will happen when the Whirlwind falls?’

  The young woman shook her head, but it was her brother who answered, ‘The Whirlwind Wall encloses a warren. Destroy the wall, and the warren is breached. Making the goddess vulnerable—had we a battalion of Claw and a half-dozen High Mages, we could hunt her down and kill her. But we can achieve no such thing.’ He threw up his hands in an odd gesture. ‘The Army of the Apocalypse will remain strengthened by her power. Those soldiers will never break, will fight on to the bitter end. Especially given the likelihood that that end will be ours, not theirs.’

  ‘Your predictions of disaster are unhelpful, Nil,’ the Adjunct murmured. ‘Accompany me, all of you, until I say otherwise.’

  They rode closer to the Whirlwind Wall, leaning in the face of the fierce, battering wind and sand. Fifteen paces from its edge, the Adjunct raised a hand. Then she dismounted, one gloved hand closing on the grip of her sword as she strode forward.

  The rust-hued otataral blade was halfway out of its scabbard when a sudden silence descended, and before them the Whirlwind Wall’s stentorian violence died, in tumbling clouds of sand and dust. The hiss of sifting rose into the storm’s mute wake. A whisper. Burgeoning light. And, then, silence.

  The Adjunct wheeled, shock writ on her features.

  ‘She withdrew!’ Nil shouted, stumbling forward. ‘Our path is clear!’

  Tavore threw up a hand to halt the Wickan. ‘In answer to my sword, Warlock? Or is this some strategic ploy?’

  ‘Both, I think. She would not willingly take such a wounding, I think. Now, she will rely upon her mortal army.’

  The dust was falling like rain, in waves lit gold by the rising sun. And the Holy Desert’s heartland was gradually becoming visible through gaps in the dying storm. There was no waiting horde, Gamet saw with a flood of relief. Naught but more wastes, with something like an escarpment on the northeast horizon, falling away as it proceeded west, where strangely broken hills ran in a natural barrier.

  The Adjunct climbed back onto her horse. ‘Temul. I want scouts o
ut far ahead. I do not believe there will be any more raids. Now, they wait for us, at a place of their own choosing. It falls to us to find it.’

  And then will come the battle. The death of hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers. The Adjunct, as the fist of the Empress. And Sha’ik, Chosen servant of the goddess. A clash of wills, nothing more. Yet it will decide the fate of hundreds of thousands.

  I want nothing to do with this.

  Tene Baralta had drawn his horse alongside Gamet. ‘We need you now more than ever,’ the Red Blade murmured as the Adjunct, with renewed energy, continued conveying orders to the officers now riding up from the main camp.

  ‘You do not need me at all,’ Gamet replied.

  ‘You are wrong. She needs a cautious voice—’

  ‘A coward’s voice, is the truth of it, and no, she does not need that.’

  ‘There is a fog that comes in battle—’

  ‘I know. I was a soldier, once. And I did well enough at that. Taking orders, commanding no-one but myself. Occasionally a handful, but not thousands. I was at my level of competence, all those years ago.’

  ‘Very well then, Gamet. Become a soldier once more. One who just happens to be attached to the Adjunct’s retinue. Give her the perspective of the common soldier. Whatever weakness you feel is not unique—realize that it is shared, by hundreds or even thousands, there in our legions.’

  Blistig had come up on the other side, and he now added, ‘She remains too remote from us, Gamet. She is without our advice because we have no chance to give it. Worse, we don’t know her strategy—’

  ‘Assuming she has one,’ Tene Baralta muttered.

  ‘Nor her tactics for this upcoming battle,’ Blistig continued. ‘It’s dangerous, against Malazan military doctrine. She’s made this war personal, Gamet.’

  Gamet studied the Adjunct, who had now ridden ahead, flanked by Nil and Nether, and seemed to be studying the broken hills beyond which, they all knew, waited Sha’ik and her Army of the Apocalypse. Personal? Yes, she would do that. Because it is what she has always done. ‘It is how she is. The Empress would not have been ignorant of her character.’

  ‘We will be walking into a carefully constructed trap,’ Tene Baralta growled. ‘Korbolo Dom will see to that. He’ll hold every piece of high ground, he’ll command every approach. He might as well paint a big red spot on the ground where he wants us to stand while he kills us.’

  ‘She is not unaware of those possibilities,’ Gamet said. Leave me alone, Tene Baralta. You as well, Blistig. We are not three any more. We are two and one. Talk to Keneb, not me. He can shoulder your expectations. I cannot. ‘We must march to meet them. What else would you have her do?’

  ‘Listen to us, that’s what,’ Blistig answered. ‘We need to find another approach. Come up from the south, perhaps—’

  ‘And spend more weeks on this march? Don’t you think Korbolo would have thought the same? Every waterhole and spring will be fouled. We would wander until Raraku killed us all, with not a single sword raised against us.’

  He caught the momentary locking of gazes between Blistig and Tene Baralta. Gamet scowled. ‘Conversations like this one will not mend what is broken, sirs. Save your breaths. I have no doubt the Adjunct will call a council of war at the appropriate time.’

  ‘She’d better,’ Tene Baralta snapped, gathering his reins and wheeling his horse round.

  As he cantered off, Blistig leaned forward and spat. ‘Gamet, when that council is called, be there.’

  ‘And if I’m not?’

  ‘We have enough baggage on this train, with all those nobleborn officers and their endless lists of grievances. Soldiers up from the ranks are rare enough in this army—too rare to see even one throw himself away. Granted, I didn’t think much of you at first. You were the Adjunct’s pet. But you managed your legion well enough—’

  ‘Until the first night we fought the enemy.’

  ‘Where a cusser killed your horse and nearly took your head off.’

  ‘I was addled before then, Blistig.’

  ‘Only because you rode into the skirmish. A Fist should not do that. You stay back, surrounded by messengers and guards. You may find yourself not issuing a single order, but you are the core position none the less, the immovable core. Just being there is enough. They can get word to you, you can get word to them. You can shore up, relieve units, and respond to developments. It’s what an officer of high rank does. If you find yourself in the midst of a fight, you are useless, a liability to the soldiers around you, because they’re obliged to save your skin. Even worse, you can see nothing, your messengers can’t find you. You’ve lost perspective. If the core wavers or vanishes, the legion falls.’

  Gamet considered Blistig’s words for a long moment, then he sighed and shrugged. ‘None of that matters any more. I am no longer a Fist. Keneb is, and he knows what to do—’

  ‘He’s acting Fist. The Adjunct made that clear. It’s temporary. And it now falls to you to resume your title, and your command.’

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘You have to, you stubborn bastard. Keneb’s a damned good captain. Now, there’s a nobleborn in that role, replacing him. The man’s a damned fool. So long as he was under Keneb’s heel he wasn’t a problem. You need to return things to their proper order, Gamet. And you need to do it today.’

  ‘How do you know about this new captain? It’s not even your legion.’

  ‘Keneb told me. He would rather have promoted one of the sergeants—there’s a few with more experience than anyone else in the entire army. They’re lying low, but it shows anyway. But the officer corps the Adjunct had to draw from was filled with nobleborn—the whole system was its own private enterprise, exclusionary and corrupt. Despite the Cull, it persists, right here in this army.’

  ‘Besides,’ Gamet nodded, ‘those sergeants are most useful right where they are.’

  ‘Aye. So cease your selfish sulking, old man, and step back in line.’ The back of Gamet’s gloved hand struck Blistig’s face hard enough to break his nose and send him pitching backward off the rump of his horse.

  He heard another horse reining in nearby and turned to see the Adjunct, a cloud of dust rolling out from under her mount’s stamping hoofs. She was staring at him.

  Spitting blood, Blistig slowly climbed to his feet.

  Grimacing, Gamet walked his horse over to where the Adjunct waited. ‘I am ready,’ he said, ‘to return to duty, Adjunct.’

  One brow arched slightly. ‘Very good. I feel the need to advise you, however, to give vent to your disagreements with your fellow Fists in more private locations in the future.’

  Gamet glanced back. Blistig was busy dusting himself off, but there was a grim smile on his bloodied face.

  The bastard. Even so, I owe him a free shot at me, don’t I?

  ‘Inform Keneb,’ the Adjunct said.

  Gamet nodded. ‘With your leave, Adjunct, I’d like another word with Fist Blistig.’

  ‘Less dramatic than the last one, I would hope, Fist Gamet.’

  ‘We’ll see, Adjunct.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Depends on how patient he is, I suppose.’

  ‘Be on your way then, Fist.’

  ‘Aye, Adjunct.’

  Strings and a few other sergeants had climbed up onto a hill—everyone else being busy with breaking camp and preparing for the march—for a clearer view of the collapsed Whirlwind Wall. Sheets of dust were still cascading down, though the freshening wind was quickly tearing through them.

  ‘Not even a whimper,’ Gesler sighed behind him.

  ‘The goddess withdrew, is my guess,’ Strings said. ‘I would bet the Adjunct didn’t even draw her sword.’

  ‘Then why raise the wall in the first place?’ Borduke wondered.

  Strings shrugged. ‘Who can say? There are other things going on here in Raraku, things we know nothing about. The world didn’t sit still during the months we spent marching here.’

  ‘It wa
s there to keep the Claw out,’ Gesler pronounced. ‘Both Sha’ik and her goddess want this battle. They want it clean. Soldier against soldier, mage against mage, commander against commander.’

  ‘Too bad for them,’ Strings muttered.

  ‘So you’ve been hinting at. Out with it, Fid.’

  ‘Just a hunch, Gesler. I get those sometimes. They’ve been infiltrated. That’s what I saw from Bottle’s divination. The night before the battle, that oasis will get hairy. Wish I could be there to see it. Damn, wish I could be there to help.’

  ‘We’ll have our turn being busy, I think,’ Gesler muttered.

  The last sergeant who had accompanied them sighed, then said in a rasp, ‘Moak thinks we won’t be busy. Unless the new captain does something stupid. The Adjunct’s going to do something unexpected. We may not get a fight at all.’

  Strings coughed. ‘Where does Moak get all this, Tugg?’

  ‘Squatting over the latrine, is my guess,’ Borduke grunted, then spat.

  The heavy infantry sergeant shrugged. ‘Moak knows things, that’s all.’

  ‘And how many times does he get it wrong?’ Gesler asked, clearing his throat.

  ‘Hard to say. He says so many things I can’t remember them all. He’s been right plenty of times, I think. I’m sure of it, in fact. Almost sure.’ Tugg faced Strings. ‘He says you were in Onearm’s Host. And the Empress wants your head on a spike, because you’ve been outlawed.’ The man then turned to Gesler. ‘And he says you and your corporal, Stormy, are Old Guard. Underage marines serving Dassem Ultor, or maybe Cartheron Crust or his brother Urko. That you were the ones who brought that old Quon dromon into Aren Harbour with all the wounded from the Chain of Dogs. And you, Borduke, you once threw a nobleborn officer off a cliff, near Karashimesh, only they couldn’t prove it, of course.’

  The three other men stared at Tugg, saying nothing.

  Tugg rubbed his neck. ‘Well, that’s what he says, anyway.’

  ‘Amazing how wrong he got it all,’ Gesler said drily.

  ‘And I take it he’s been spreading these tales around?’ Strings asked.