‘Uh-huh. When I heard the news, I wondered … what would you have done if it was his place we went to visit tonight?’
Kyle hefted the feather-light pouch. ‘Nothing. I wouldn’t have had to do anything because he would have scattered you lot like geese.’
The chief enforcer for Best, the man who controlled most of the blackmailing and extortion in the city, seemed to peer down sleepily at Kyle over the great bulk of his chest. His nostrils flared as he snorted. ‘Some kinda hot ex-mercenary you’ve turned out to be. I ain’t seen fuck-all that impresses from you yet.’
‘And you won’t. Here,’ Kyle flicked the pouch at him, ‘keep your ears on. See you around.’
‘I don’t think so,’ the man called after him. ‘He’d be in prison right now ’cept someone bought his debts – and that someone ain’t from around here …’
The man’s sly rumbling laughter followed Kyle down the darkened street.
Some Falaran legal documents, all ribboned and weighted by wax seals, hung nailed to the door of Orjin’s school. Kyle tried the door and found it unlocked. Just inside the tunnel he stopped to study the empty practice floor; the sand shone in the moonlight like glittering quicksilver.
‘Orjin?’ he hissed. ‘Orjin?’ Movement from the shadows. A figure staggered into the pale light, sword held slack and low in one hand. Great Harrier preserve us! What’s happened? He ran to him, grunted as the man’s extraordinary weight sagged on him. ‘What’s happened? Are you wounded?’
Something banged from Kyle’s head, sloshing. He snatched an earthenware jug from Orjin’s hand. ‘What’s this?’
‘No more of your talk!’ the man bellowed hotly in his ear. ‘Keep your contracts and writs! Dare to face me like a man, Dead Poliel take you!’
‘Oh for Hood’s sake!’ Kyle pushed him away. He should’ve smelled it, but the last months spent sitting in a common room had blunted his nose.
Tottering, Orjin swung the slim Darujhistan epée, almost cutting Kyle. ‘Come on! Arm yourself! We’ll settle this the old-fashioned way!’ He crossed to a weapon rack and heaved it over in a ringing clatter of ironmongery. ‘Take your pick! As you see – there’s plenty!’
‘Orjin … Greymane …’
The man blinked, weaving. ‘What’s that? Greymane? Greymane?’ His head sank chin to chest and for a time he seemed to study all the fallen swords glowing silver in the moonlight. ‘That man is dead.’
‘Orjin … I heard someone’s coming. Someone from elsewhere –that can only mean the Malazans. They’ve found you.’ He stepped closer. ‘Now come on. Let’s go. There’s nothing for us here. I hate this place. These people would bend over for donkeys if they had gold. Let’s go.’
Orjin breathed out a noisy wet sigh and eased himself down amid the blades. He hung his head. His long unkempt mane shone just as bright as the tangled iron. ‘No. I’m finished. Let them come.’ He waved broadly to encompass the surroundings. ‘This was always my dream, you know, Kyle. Retire. Open a fighting college. Teach something of what I’ve learned.’ At random, he picked up a longsword, a heavy northern Genabackan weapon; sighted down the blade. ‘But no one really wants to know what a bellyful of war teaches.’
Looking down at the man, Kyle considered trying to wrench him up but didn’t think he’d be able to budge his bulk. He knelt to his haunches. ‘Listen, Orjin. Hood take these merchants and gangsters. They’re no different from each other. Let’s just go! Hire on to the first ship we come to in the harbour – who cares where it’s headed.’
‘No, no. That’s a young man’s game. I’m too old. You go.’
‘No one’s after me.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’
‘I’m here because—’ A small sound, the scuff of a foot on sand, turned Kyle’s head. Four figures emerged from the gloom of the entrance tunnel. All were dressed alike in dark leathers and bore two blades at their sides, one long, one short. Kyle straightened, taking up the nearest weapon as he did so, a sturdy heavy-bladed cutlass. ‘Who are you?’
‘Whoever you are,’ one answered, waving him away, ‘stand aside.’
The accent was not Malazan. It didn’t resemble any accent Kyle had ever heard in all his travels. At the voice, however, Orjin’s head snapped up, and he said to Kyle, his words suddenly stone-cold sober, ‘Go, now. Leave us.’
‘Go? Who are these guys? Hired killers?’
‘Killers, yes.’ Orjin stood, gathering up a long slim blade in each hand. ‘But not for gold or treasure – hey, Cullel?’ A gleaming bright hungry grin from the spokesman answered Orjin. ‘You kill for something else, don’t you? For religious faith alone.’
‘We exterminate heretics,’ Cullel assented, his voice a low purr. The four slowly spread out, walking the perimeter of the practice floor.
‘Where in the Abyss are these lunatics from?’ Kyle demanded.
‘They are Korelri. Veterans of the Stormwall. They’ve been given special dispensation to hunt me down. Yes, Cullel?’
‘Hunt you down?’ Kyle asked.
Orjin shifted to put his back to Kyle’s. ‘Yes.’
‘But I thought the Malazans wanted you.’
‘Ah … well … them too.’
‘Wonderful.’
The four now occupied each of the sides of the practice yard. As one they drew their weapons, the long and the short blades.
‘Get rid of that and use your fancy blade,’ Orjin told Kyle.
‘I … don’t have it.’
‘You don’t—’ Orjin sent an exasperated look over his shoulder. ‘Why in the Abyss not?’
‘Gentlemen …’ Cullel called softly.
‘It was stolen from my room.’
‘Stolen?’
‘Gentlemen!’
‘Well, we’re in a right fix now, thanks to you,’ Orjin grumbled.
‘Thank you,’ Cullel said. ‘Now, before we execute our duty it is my obligation to inform you, Greymane, that you have been tried in absentia by the High Council of the Chosen, Defenders of the Lands of Korel and All Greater Fist and Beyond, and have been found guilty of making pacts with the enemy. And that you did enter into said pacts and covenants with the daemonic Riders wilfully, and of your own cognizance.’
‘Pacts?’ Kyle whispered to Orjin.
The man gave a beefy shrug of acquiescence. ‘I talked to them.’
‘Them – the Riders? You really cut a deal with the Stormriders?’
‘Gentlemen! Decorum, if you please. The discharge of justice is a solemn responsibility.’
‘Justice?’ Kyle barked, offended by the idea. ‘You’re damned up yourself, aren’t you?’
Distaste twisted the man’s blade-narrow face. ‘Very well. Judgement has been delivered. And now, the sentence …’ He nodded to his fellows.
They advanced together, blades raised. So much for justice, Kyle decided – four against two. Entering the moonlight, the four Korelri suddenly blazed as the slanting rays revealed that their armour, fittings and scabbards were all studded and filigreed with thin curving traceries of the finest silver.
It chanced that Kyle faced Cullel. Shifting his sandalled foot, Kyle kicked a scarf of sand for cover and parried the other Korelri. Instantly, he knew he faced the best swordsmen he’d ever met. He could barely deflect their attacks. Light cuts welled blood on his forearms. A thrust tore into his thigh and he almost fell. They even worked as a team: he could only watch while they coordinated their attacks to draw him out and expose his side – Wind take it! There is nothing I can do! He sensed Orjin, behind, going down to one knee. Hit already?
Then Greymane was up and the two swordsmen facing Kyle flinched, seeing something beyond him. One of the Korelri behind Kyle snarled his pain while the other flew into view, tumbling loosely over the sand as if tossed by a ferocious blow. Then Orjin stepped in front of Kyle, swinging a two-handed dull-grey blade that Kyle had only seen once before. Cullel parried, but his sword blade shattered like brittle bronze and Orjin’s swing cont
inued on to smash into his side, crumpling him. The last remaining Defender yelled ferociously and leapt, only to be impaled on the thick blade. Orjin kicked the man from the coarse, gritty-looking weapon, and shook the blood from its length.
Kyle took in the four fallen men, then Orjin’s ragged, two-handed sword. ‘Where by all the Queen’s Mysteries did that come from?’
A wet laugh sounded from where Cullel lay. It raised Kyle’s hackles. He squeezed the bloody cut in the leathers over his thigh and limped over.
‘What’s that? You have even more to say?’
‘So it is true …’ the man gasped. Blood welled up with the word. ‘The claims are true. Stonewielder … He betrayed all humanity for that artefact.’
‘Bullshit!’
The man’s eyes widened with a fevered light. ‘No. His reward. Ask him, though he’ll no doubt lie.’ He fought to say more but blood now filled his mouth and he gasped in a coughing fit, straining for breath. His body clenched rigid then slowly eased, relaxing, falling limp.
Kyle raised his eyes to Orjin. ‘Well?’
The big man simply walked off and knelt to pick up the fallen gourd of wine. When he straightened, the blade was gone. Kyle crossed the floor. ‘Where is it?’
‘Where’s what?’
‘The sword.’ He scanned the ground but saw no sign of it. ‘Where’d it go?’
‘Never mind, Kyle. Leave it alone.’ Orjin took a deep swig from the gourd.
‘But … what is it?’
Orjin wiped his sleeve across his mouth, sighed. ‘Damned useless is what it is.’
‘Useless?’
Waving aside all discussion, Orjin crossed to a bench, sat heavily. As his leg was steadily numbing Kyle decided to join him. He took the gourd and sipped to wet his caked mouth, spat. ‘So? Did the Riders give it to you?’
Orjin nodded his slow assent. ‘Yeah. They gave it to me. Not for any damned pact or deal or anything. We just talked and they gave it to me.’
‘Just like that.’
The man turned his head to glare one-eyed. ‘Don’t be trite. One night I climbed down the cliffs to the edge of the Ocean of Storm and waited – you try that one night. Eventually, some showed up. They speak Korelri … there’s irony for you. Anyway, we talked. They claimed they weren’t the enemy at all. I pointed out that attacking the Stormwall for generations tended to give the appearance. They said the Korelri were denying them access to their own territory and blocking some kind of ancient obligation, or holy pilgrimage … or some such thing.’ He cleared his throat, waved a hand. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t really make it all out.’
Kyle got the impression there was more to it, but apparently this was all the other would say – for now. He took another sip. He rested his eyes on the four still figures gleaming in the moonlight. ‘How come they can speak Korelri if they’re such sworn enemies? Do they take captives from the wall or something like that? Torture them in their undersea lairs?’
Orjin leaned forward to give him a long hard look.
‘What?’
Orjin snatched back the gourd. ‘You’ve listened to too many romances. It’s rotted your brain. No, the thought occurred to me too, so I asked. They said they’d always listened to the men on the wall and to sailors on ships.’
‘Well then, why don’t they just yell from the water then? Talk to them?’
‘They said they tried that but the men always ignored them, called them liars and sirens and such. So they stopped.’
‘And the sword?’
Again the beefy shrug. ‘They were grateful I’d talked to them so they offered it as a gift. I said sure.’
‘So what is it? Where’s it from?’
Orjin finished the gourd, tossed it aside. ‘They didn’t know. Said they’d found it deep at the bottom of the Cut far beneath the sea. They did say it was very old, and I agree.’
‘But you never use it.’
He edged his head side to side. ‘No. It’s too powerful. Too dangerous.’
‘But you have used it – I remember, against that warlock.’
A small thoughtful nod, eyes ahead, perhaps also studying the mute meaning of the four dead Defenders of the Faith.
‘So, that name I’d heard for you – Stonewielder.’
‘Yeah. A few called me that before I was arrested by Malazan High Command.’
‘But … I thought you were in command of Malazan forces in Korel.’
‘Military, yes. The marines and regulars. But there was a civilian authority. A governor. Hemel. Hemel ’Et Kelal. A Bloorian nobleman. Never did know what happened to the man. Anyway, he and a gang of minor officers denounced me for treating with the Riders … and that was that.’
‘And then?’ Kyle asked, fascinated, almost forgetting the pain clenching his leg.
Orjin waved it all away. ‘Never mind. Ancient history.’ Groaning and wincing, he stood. ‘I’m out of wine and you need that leg looked at.’ He held out a hand. ‘Let’s go.’
Kyle pulled himself upright, held on to the man’s shoulder as he limped along. ‘So we’ll sign on to a ship?’
‘Trake no! We’re going to get your sword back.’
‘But I told you – someone stole it from my room.’
Orjin shook his head. ‘Kyle … you’re too trusting.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Best is one of the heads of Delanss’ black market. The man’s a thief. He stole it.’
‘He said he’d get it back for me!’
Orjin stopped short and peered down at him for a time. ‘And then he suggested that you might as well do some work for him in the meantime …’
Kyle gave a sheepish shrug. ‘Something like that.’
‘That settles it. Can you walk?’
‘Yeah – some.’
‘Okay. Head to the waterfront. Wait for me there. I’ll be back with your sword and then we’ll have to be off right quick.’
‘Grey— Orjin, I can’t let you do that.’
‘Might as well make it Greymane, Kyle. I took a stab at being plain old Orjin Samarr once more, but it didn’t take. So it’s Greymane again. And it’ll be Greymane who’ll be visiting Best tonight.’
Kyle peered about at the silent rain-slick street, the moonlit shop fronts. ‘Grey, it’s not worth it. Let’s get out of here while we can.’
‘Not worth it? You know that’s a lie. Your friends in the Guard, Stalker and his cousins, they told me who gave you that weapon. So we both know it’s worth it.’ His pale blue eyes, buried deep in their sockets, flashed something that might have been amusement. ‘We’re both burdened by blades that are more than we would want.’ He motioned Kyle on. ‘Get us berths on a ship leaving at dawn!’
Kyle watched him go, then limped for the waterfront. So Stalker had told him – or he’d asked. In any case, it was true. Osserc, a being Kyle’s people worshipped as a patron god of Wind, Sky and Light, had given him the blade. Since then he’d discovered that Osserc was merely – merely! – a powerful entity, an Ascendant. Such as the Tiste Andii leader Anomander, Son of Darkness, or as some name the Enchantress, the Queen of Dreams.
But now Kyle considered all its power more trouble than it was worth. He couldn’t even draw the thing without calling extraordinary attention to himself, just like Greymane. And now the damned fool was off to get himself killed … and for what? Maybe, it occurred to Kyle as he hobbled along, the man was doing it to prove a point to himself – that he could do it.
It was close after dawn and Kyle was sitting high on the afterdeck of a galley out of Curaca when he spotted the renegade. The ship’s bone-mender was wrapping his leg but he sat up, yelling: ‘There he is! Let off! Go!’
‘Aiya!’ the old woman shouted, and gave his leg an agonizing squeeze. ‘Sit still!’
From the railing, the mate warned, ‘Your man better be worth it.’ Then he called, ‘Cast off all lines!’
The big man was jogging down the wharf, a long wrapped object in one hand. Behind him, b
etween buildings, erupted a mass of armed men and women, civilians and city guards alike. The bone-mender let go a wild cackle at the sight.
‘Wide Ocean below!’ the mate swore. ‘Your man’s stirred up a hornets’ nest! What’s he done?’
‘You know Best, the black marketeer?’
‘That cockroach? Yeah.’
‘Well, I think my friend has kicked him in the balls.’
The mate grinned and turned to his men. ‘Look lively and ready pikes to repel boarders!’
The old crone laughed again. Her riotous cackle unnerved Kyle far more than he thought it should.
*
A Delanss nobleman entered the ransacked and empty practice quarters of Orjin’s School of Swordsmanship and tucked his hands into his thick robes behind the heavy silver links of rank. Everything, he noted, had been stripped overnight. ‘Hello?’ Blood stained the sand but he saw no signs of the bodies. ‘Anyone here?’
‘Yes.’
The man jumped, and turned to where a woman stepped forward from the shadows. She wore plain dark clothes and soft leather shoes. She was a very deep brown, her hair tightly curled and cut short. Something about her reminded the nobleman of the Korelri he’d just dealt with, though he knew this woman for no Fistian. Perhaps it was the stink of fanaticism that seemed to hang about them both.
‘I apologize for this Orjin fellow. I had no idea he was so unstable. I heard that he bulled his way through Best’s entire bodyguard and proceeded to hold him by one hand over a privy hole until the man handed over one just one particular item. It’s not my fault he went berserk.’
The woman lazily dismissed his concerns with a wave of a long-fingered hand. ‘Do not worry yourself. You would have been paid in full even if the Korelri had managed to kill him.’
‘Even then?’
‘Yes. Because then we would’ve known he was no longer the man for us.’
The nobleman raised both brows. ‘Really? And now – after he has wounded over twenty men, overcome a patrol of the city guard, and thumbed his nose at all civilized authority – what do you know now?’
The woman’s deep brown eyes seemed to laugh at him, and more, to do things that only the most recent of his mistresses was able to accomplish with just a look. She said, smiling, ‘That he is exactly the one we want.’
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