House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  A hand shot out of the darkness and closed about Bidithal’s neck. He was lifted into the air—flailing—then thrown hard to the ground. Blinded. Choking.

  His shadow-servants swarmed to defend him.

  A growl, the hissing swing of something massive that cut a sweeping path—and suddenly the wraiths were gone.

  Slowly, Bidithal’s bulging eyes made out the figure crouched above him.

  Toblakai—

  ‘You should have left her alone,’ Karsa Orlong said quietly, his voice devoid of inflection. Behind and around the giant were gathering ghosts, chained souls.

  We are both servants of the same god! You fool! Let me speak! I would save Sha’ik!

  ‘But you didn’t. I know, Bidithal, where your sick desires come from. I know where your pleasure hides—the pleasure you would take from others. Witness.’

  Karsa Orlong set down his stone sword, then reached between Bidithal’s legs.

  A hand closed indiscriminately around all that it found.

  And tore.

  Until, with a ripping of tendons and shreds of muscle, a flood of blood and other fluids, the hand came away with its mangled prize.

  The pain was unbearable. The pain was a rending of his soul. It devoured him.

  And blood was pouring out, hot as fire, even as deathly cold stole across his skin, seeped into his limbs.

  The scene above him blackened, until only Toblakai’s impassive, battered face remained, coolly watching Bidithal’s death.

  Death? Yes. You fool, Toblakai—

  The hand around his neck relaxed, drew away.

  Involuntarily, Bidithal drew in an agonizing breath and made to scream—

  Something soft and bloody was pushed into his mouth.

  ‘For you, Bidithal. For every nameless girl-child you destroyed. Here. Choke on your pleasure.’

  And choke he did. Until Hood’s Gate yawned—

  And there, gathered by the Lord of Death, waited demons who were of like nature to Bidithal himself, gleefully closing about their new victim.

  A lifetime of vicious pleasure. An eternity of pain in answer.

  For even Hood understood the necessity for balance.

  Lostara Yil edged up from the sinkhole and squinted in an effort to pierce the gloom. A glance behind her revealed a starlit desert, luminous and glittering. Yet, ahead, darkness swathed the oasis and the ruined city within it. A short while earlier she had heard distant thumps, faint screams, but now silence had returned.

  The air had grown bitter cold. Scowling, Lostara checked her weapons, then made to leave.

  ‘Make no move,’ a voice murmured from a pace or two off to her right.

  Her head snapped round, then her scowl deepened. ‘If you’re here to watch, Cotillion, there’s little to see. I woke Pearl, and he hardly swore at all, despite the headache. He’s in there, somewhere—’

  ‘Aye, he is, lass. But already he’s returning . . . because he can feel what’s coming.’

  ‘What’s coming. Enough to make you hide here beside me?’

  The shadow-shrouded god seemed to shrug. ‘There are times when it is advisable to step back . . . and wait. The Holy Desert itself senses the approach of an ancient foe, and will rise in answer if need be. Even more precarious, the fragment of Kurald Emurlahn that the Whirlwind Goddess would claim is manifesting itself. The goddess is fashioning a portal, a gate—one massive enough to swallow this entire oasis. Thus, she too makes a play for Raraku’s immortal heart. The irony is that she herself is being manipulated, by a far cleverer god, who would take this fragment for himself, and call it his House of Chains. So you see, Lostara Shadow Dancer, best we remain precisely where we are. For tonight, and in this place, worlds are at war.’

  ‘It is nothing to Pearl and me,’ she insisted, squinting hard into the gloom. ‘We’re here for Felisin—’

  ‘And you have found her, but she remains beyond you. Beyond Pearl as well. For the moment . . .’

  ‘Then we must needs but await the clearing of the path.’

  ‘Aye. As I have advised, patience.’

  Shadows swirled, hissed over sand, then the god was gone.

  Lostara grunted. ‘Goodbye to you as well,’ she muttered, then drew her cloak tighter about herself and settled down to wait.

  Assassins armed with crossbows had crept up behind him. Febryl had killed them, one after another, as soon as they arrived, with a host of most painful spells, and now his sorcerous web told him that there were no more. Indeed, Korbolo Dom and Kamist Reloe had been bearded in their den. By ghosts and worse—agents of the Malazan Empire.

  Wide and bloody paths had carved messily across his web, leaving him blind here and there, but none stretched anywhere close to his position . . . so far. And soon, the oasis behind him would become as a nightmare wakened into horrid reality, and Febryl himself would vanish from the minds of his enemies in the face of more immediate threats.

  Dawn was but two bells away. While, behind him, darkness had devoured the oasis, the sky overhead and to the east was comparatively bright with the glitter of stars. Indeed, everything was proceeding perfectly.

  The starlight also proved sufficient for Febryl to detect the shadow that fell over him.

  ‘I never liked you much,’ rumbled a voice above him.

  Squealing, Febryl sought to dive forward.

  But was effortlessly plucked and lifted high from the ground.

  Then broken.

  The snap of his spine was like brittle wood in the cold night air.

  Karsa Orlong flung Febryl’s corpse away. He glared up at the stars for a moment, drew a deep breath into his lungs, and sought to clear his mind.

  Urugal’s withered voice was screaming in his skull. It had been that voice, and that will, that had driven him step by step from the oasis.

  The false god of the Uryd tribe wanted Karsa Orlong . . . gone.

  He was being pushed hard . . . away from what was coming, from what was about to happen in the oasis.

  But Karsa did not like being pushed.

  He lifted his sword clear of his harness rings and closed both hands about the grip, lowering the point to hover just above the ground, then forced himself to turn about and face the oasis.

  A thousand ghostly chains stretched taut behind him, then began pulling.

  The Teblor growled under his breath and leaned forward. I am the master of these chains. I, Karsa Orlong, yield to none. Not gods, not the souls I have slain. I will walk forward now, and either resistance shall end, or the chains will be snapped.

  Besides, I have left my horse tethered in the stone forest.

  Twin howls tore the night air above the oasis, sudden and fierce as cracks of lightning.

  Karsa Orlong smiled. Ah, they have arrived.

  He lifted his sword’s point slightly higher, then surged forward.

  It would not do—it turned out—to have the chains sundered. The tension suddenly vanished, and, for this night at least, all resistance to Toblakai’s will had ended.

  He left the ridge and descended the slope, into the gloom once more.

  Fist Gamet was lying on his cot, struggling to breathe as a tightness seized his throat. Thunder filled his head, in thrumming waves of pain radiating out from a spot just above and behind his right eye.

  Pain such as he had never felt before, driving him onto his side, the cot creaking and pitching as nausea racked him, the vomit spraying onto the floor. But the emptying of his stomach offered no surcease from the agony in his skull.

  His eyes were open but he was blind.

  There had been headaches. Every day, since his fall from his horse. But nothing like this.

  The barely healed knife-slash in his palm had reopened during his contortions, smearing sticky blood across his face and brow when he sought to claw the pain out from his head, and the wound now felt as if it was afire, scorching his veins.

  Groaning, he clambered sideways from the cot and then halted, on his hands and
knees, head hanging down, as waves of trembling shivered through him.

  I need to move. I need to act. Something. Anything.

  I need—

  A time of blankness, then he found himself standing near the tent flap. Weighted in his armour, gauntlets covering his hands, helm on his head. The pain was fading, a cool emptiness rising in its wake.

  He needed to go outside. He needed his horse.

  Gamet strode from the tent. A guard accosted him but he waved the woman away and hurried towards the corrals.

  Ride. Ride out. It’s time.

  Then he was cinching the saddle of his horse, waiting for the beast to release its breath, then drawing it a notch tighter. A clever horse. Paran stables, of course. Fast and of almost legendary endurance. Impatient with incompetence, ever testing the rider’s claim to being in charge, but that was to be expected from such a fine breed.

  Gamet swung himself into the saddle. It felt good to be riding once more. On the move, the ground whispering past as he rode down the back ramp, then round the jagged island and towards the basin.

  He saw three figures ahead, standing at the ridge, and thought nothing strange as to their presence. They are what will come. These three.

  Nil. Nether. The lad, Grub.

  The last turned as Gamet reined in beside them. And nodded. ‘The Wickans and Malazans are on the flanks, Fist. But your assault will be straight up the Dogslayers’ main ramp.’ And he pointed.

  Footsoldiers and cavalry were massing in the basin, moving through the thick gloom. Gamet could hear the whisper of armour, feel the thud of countless horse hoofs. He saw banners and standards, hanging limp and ragged.

  ‘Ride to them, Fist,’ Grub said.

  And he saluted the child and set heels to his mount’s flanks.

  Black and rust-red armour, visored helms with ornate cheek-guards, short thrusting javelins and kite shields, the rumble of countless booted feet—he rode alongside one column, casting an appraising eye over the companies of infantry.

  Then a wing of cavalry swept round to engulf him. One rider rode close. A dragon-winged helm swivelled to face him. ‘Ride with us, soldier?’

  ‘I cannot,’ Gamet replied. ‘I am the Fist. I must command.’

  ‘Not this night,’ the warrior replied. ‘Fight at our sides, as the soldier you are. Remember the old battles? When all that was required was the guarding of the companions flanking you. Such will be this night. Leave the commanding to the lords. Ride with us in freedom. And glory.’

  A surge of exultation swept through Gamet. The pain in his head was gone. He could feel his blood racing like fire in his muscles. He wanted this. Yes, he wanted this very thing.

  Gamet unsheathed his sword, the sound an echoing rasp in the chill air.

  His helmed companion laughed. ‘Are you with us, soldier?’

  ‘I am, friend.’

  They reached the base of the cobbled ramp, slowing to firm up their formation. A broad wedge that then began assailing the slope, hoofs striking sparks off the stones.

  The Dogslayers had yet to sound an alarm.

  Fools. They’ve slept through it all. Or perhaps sorcery has deadened the sounds of our preparation. Ah, yes. Nil and Nether. They are still there, on the ridge the other side of the basin.

  The company’s standard bearer was just a few horses to Gamet’s left. He squinted up at the banner, wondered that he had never seen it before. There was something of the Khundryl in its design, torn and frayed though it was. A clan of the Burned Tears, then—which made sense given the archaic armour his comrades were wearing. Archaic and half rotting, in fact. Too long stored in chests—moths and other vermin have assailed it, but the bronze looks sound enough, if tarnished and pitted. A word to the commanders later, I think . . .

  Cool, gauging thoughts, even as his proud horse thundered alongside the others. Gamet glared upward, and saw the crest directly before them. He lifted high his longsword and loosed a savage scream.

  The wedge poured over the crest, swept out into the unaware ranks of Dogslayers, still huddled down in their trenches.

  Screams on all sides, strangely muted, almost faint. Sounds of battle, yet they seemed a league distant, as if carried on the wind. Gamet swung his sword, his eyes meeting those of Dogslayers, seeing the horror writ there. Watching mouths open to shriek, yet hardly any sound came forth, as if the sands were swallowing everything, absorbing sound as eagerly as they did blood and bile.

  Masses surged over the trenches, blackened swords swinging and chopping down. The ramp to the east had been overrun by the Wickans. Gamet saw the waving standards and grinned. Crow. Foolish Dog. Weasel.

  Out of the impenetrably black sky descended butterflies, in swarms, to flit above the carnage in the trenches.

  On the ramp to the west there was the flash of Moranth munitions, sending grim reverberations through the earth, and Gamet could watch the slaughter over there, a scene panoramic and dulled, as if he was looking upon a mural—a painting where ancient armies warred in eternal battle.

  They had come for the Dogslayers. For the butcherers of unarmed Malazans, soldier and civilian, the stubborn and the fleeing, the desperate and the helpless. The Dogslayers, who had given their souls to betrayal.

  The fight raged on, but it was overwhelmingly one-sided. The enemy seemed strangely incapable of mustering any kind of defence. They simply died in their trenches, or seeking to retreat they were run down after but a few strides. Skewered by lances, javelins. Trampled beneath chopping hoofs.

  Gamet understood their horror, saw with a certain satisfaction the terror in their faces as he and his comrades delivered death.

  He could hear the battle song now, rising and falling like waves on a pebbled shore, yet building towards a climax yet to come—yet to come, but soon. Soon. Yes, we’ve needed a song. We’ve waited a long time for such a song. To honour our deeds, our struggles. Our lives and our deaths. We’ve needed our own voice, so that our spirits could march, march ever onward.

  To battle.

  To war.

  Manning these walls of crumbled brick and sand. Defending the bone-dry harbours and the dead cities that once blazed with ancient dreams, that once flickered life’s reflection on the warm, shallow sea.

  Even memories need to be defended.

  Even memories.

  He fought on, side by side with his dark warrior companions—and so grew to love them, these stalwart comrades, and when at last the dragon-helmed horse warrior rode up and reined in before him, Gamet whirled his sword in greeting.

  The rider laughed once again. Reached up a blood-spattered, gauntleted hand, and raised the visor—to reveal the face of a dark-skinned woman, her eyes a stunning blue within a web of desert lines.

  ‘There are more!’ Gamet shouted—though even to his own ears his voice sounded far away. ‘More enemies! We must ride!’

  Her teeth flashed white as she laughed again. ‘Not the tribes, my friend! They are kin. This battle is done—others will shed blood come the morrow. We march to the shores, soldier—will you join us?’

  He saw more than professional interest in her eyes.

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘You would leave your friends, Gamet Ul’Paran?’

  ‘For you, yes.’

  Her smile, and the laugh that followed, stole the old man’s heart.

  A final glance to the other ramps showed no movement. The Wickans to the east had ridden on, although a lone crow was wheeling overhead. The Malazans to the west had withdrawn. And the butterflies had vanished. In the trenches of the Dogslayers, an hour before dawn, only the dead remained.

  Vengeance. She will be pleased. She will understand, and be pleased.

  As am I.

  Goodbye, Adjunct Tavore.

  Koryk slowly settled down beside him, stared northeastward as if seeking to discover what so held the man’s attention. ‘What is it?’ he asked after a time. ‘What are you looking at, Sergeant?’

  Fiddler wiped at his
eyes. ‘Nothing . . . or nothing that makes sense.’

  ‘We’re not going to see battle in the morning, are we?’

  He glanced over, studied the young Seti’s hard-edged features, wanting to see something in them, though he was not quite certain what. After a moment, he sighed and shrugged. ‘The glory of battle, Koryk, dwells only in the bard’s voice, in the teller’s woven words. Glory belongs to ghosts and poets. What you hear and dream isn’t the same as what you live—blur the distinction at your own peril, lad.’

  ‘You’ve been a soldier all your life, Sergeant. If it doesn’t ease a thirst within you, why are you here?’

  ‘I’ve no answer to that,’ Fiddler admitted. ‘I think, maybe, I was called here.’

  ‘That song Bottle said you were hearing?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What does it mean? That song?’

  ‘Quick Ben will have a better answer to that, I think. But my gut is whispering one thing over and over again. The Bridgeburners, lad, have ascended.’

  Koryk made a warding sign and edged away slightly.

  ‘Or, at least, the dead ones have. The rest of us, we’re just . . . malingering. Here in the mortal realm.’

  ‘Expecting to die soon, then?’

  Fiddler grunted. ‘Wasn’t planning on it.’

  ‘Good, because we like our sergeant just fine.’

  The Seti moved away. Fiddler returned his gaze to the distant oasis. Appreciate that, lad. He narrowed his eyes, but the darkness defied him. Something was going on there. Feels as if . . . as if friends are fighting. I can almost hear sounds of battle. Almost.

  Suddenly, two howls rose into the night.

  Fiddler was on his feet. ‘Hood’s breath!’

  From Smiles: ‘Gods, what was that?’

  No. Couldn’t have been. But . . .

  And then the darkness above the oasis began to change.

  The row of horse warriors rode up before them amidst swirling dust, the horses stamping and tossing heads in jittery fear.