‘The Shadow Realm,’ Kalam said. ‘It was theirs, once, and now they want it back.’
The wizard’s gaze narrowed on the assassin. ‘Cotillion told you this?’
Kalam shrugged.
‘It keeps coming back to Shadowthrone, doesn’t it? No wonder I’m nervous. That slimy, slippery bastard—’
‘Oh Hood’s balls,’ Stormy groaned, ‘give me that rice piss, if you’re gonna go on and on. Shadowthrone ain’t scary. Shadowthrone’s just Ammanas, and Ammanas is just Kellanved. Just like Cotillion’s Dancer. Hood knows, we knew the Emperor well enough. And Dancer. They up to something? No surprise. They were always up to something, from the very start. I tell you both right now,’ he paused for a swig of rice wine, made a face, then continued, ‘when all the dust’s settled, they’ll be shining like pearls atop a dung-heap. Gods, Elder Gods, dragons, undead, spirits and the scary empty face of the Abyss itself – they won’t none a them stand a chance. You want to worry about Tiste Edur, wizard? Go ahead. Maybe they ruled Shadow once, but Shadowthrone’ll take ’em down. Him and Dancer.’ He belched. ‘An’ you know why? I’ll tell you why. They never fight fair. That’s why.’
Kalam looked over at the empty chair, and his eyes slowly narrowed.
Stumbling, crawling, or dragging themselves along through the bed of white ash, they all came to where Bottle sat, the sky a swirl of stars overhead. Saying nothing, not one of those soldiers, but each in turn managing one gentle gesture – reaching out and with one finger, touching the head of Y’Ghatan the rat.
Tender, with great reverence – until she bit that finger, and the hand would be snatched back with a hissed curse.
One after another, Y’Ghatan bit them all.
She was hungry, Bottle explained, and pregnant. So he explained. Or tried to, but no-one was really listening. It seemed that they didn’t even care, that her bite was part of the ritual, now, a price of blood, the payment of sacrifice.
He told those who would listen that she had bitten him too.
But she hadn’t. Not her. Not him. Their souls were inextricably bound, now. And things like that were complicated, profound even. He studied the creature where it was settled in his lap. Profound, yes, that was the word.
He stroked her head. My dear rat. My sweet—ow! Damn you! Bitch!
Black, glittering eyes looked up at him, whiskered nose twitching.
Vile, disgusting creatures.
He set the creature down and it could wander over a precipice for all he cared. Instead, the rat snuggled up against his right foot and curled into sleep. Bottle looked over at the makeshift camp, at the array of dim faces he could see here and there. No-one had lit a fire. Funny, that, in a sick way.
They had come through it. Bottle still found it difficult to believe. And Gesler had gone back in, only to return a while later. Followed by Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas, the warrior dragging Strings into view, then himself collapsing. Bottle could hear the man’s snores that had been going on uninterrupted half the night.
The sergeant was alive. The honey smeared into his wounds seemed to have delivered healing to match High Denul, making it obvious that it had been anything but ordinary honey – as if the strange visions weren’t proof enough of that. Still, even that was unable to replace the blood Strings had lost, and that blood loss should have killed him. Yet now the sergeant slept, too weak to manage much else, but alive.
Bottle wished he was as tired…in that way, at least, the kind that beckoned warm and welcoming. Instead of this spiritual exhaustion that left his nerves frayed, images returning again and again of their nightmare journey among the buried bones of Y’Ghatan. And with them, the bitter taste of those moments when all seemed lost, hopeless.
Captain Faradan Sort and Sinn had stashed away a supply of water-casks and food-packs, which they had since retrieved, but for Bottle no amount of water could wash the taste of smoke and ashes from his mouth. And there was something else that burned still within him. The Adjunct had abandoned them, forcing the captain and Sinn to desert. True enough, it was only reasonable to assume no-one had been left alive. He knew his feeling was irrational, yet it gnawed at him nonetheless.
The captain had talked about the plague, sweeping towards them from the east, and the need to keep the army well ahead of it. The Adjunct had waited as long as she could. Bottle knew all that. Still…
‘We’re dead, you know.’
He looked over at Koryk, who sat cross-legged nearby, a child sleeping beside him. ‘If we’re dead,’ Bottle said, ‘why do we feel so awful?’
‘As far as the Adjunct’s concerned. We’re dead. We can just…leave.’
‘And go where, Koryk? Poliel stalks Seven Cities—’
‘Ain’t no plague gonna kill us. Not now.’
‘You think we’re immortal or something?’ Bottle asked. He shook his head. ‘We survived this, sure, but that doesn’t mean a damned thing. It sure as Hood doesn’t mean that the next thing to come along won’t kill us right and quick. Maybe you’re feeling immune – to anything and everything the world can throw at us, now. But, believe me, we’re not.’
‘Better that than anything else,’ Koryk muttered.
Bottle thought about the soldier’s words. ‘You think some god decided to use us? Pulled us out for a reason?’
‘Either that, Bottle, or your rat’s a genius.’
‘The rat was four legs and a good nose, Koryk. Her soul was bound. By me. I was looking through her eyes, sensing everything she sensed—’
‘And did she dream when you dreamed?’
‘Well, I don’t know—’
‘Did she run away, then?’
‘No, but—’
‘So she waited around. For you to wake back up. So you could imprison her soul again.’
Bottle said nothing.
‘Any god tries to use me,’ Koryk said in a low voice, ‘it’ll regret it.’
‘With all those fetishes you wear,’ Bottle noted, ‘I’d have thought you’d be delighted at the attention.’
‘You’re wrong. What I wear ain’t for seeking blessings.’
‘Then what are they?’
‘Wards.’
‘All of them?’
Koryk nodded. ‘They make me invisible. To gods, spirits, demons…’
Bottle studied the soldier through the gloom. ‘Well, maybe they don’t work.’
‘Depends,’ he replied.
‘On what?’
‘Whether we’re dead or not.’
Smiles laughed from nearby. ‘Koryk’s lost his mind. No surprise, it being so small, and things being so dark in there…’
‘Not like ghosts and all that,’ Koryk said in a sneering tone. ‘You think like a ten-year-old, Smiles.’
Bottle winced.
Something skittered off a rock close to Koryk and the soldier started. ‘What in Hood’s name?’
‘That was a knife,’ Bottle said, having felt it whip past him. ‘Amazing, she saved one for you.’
‘More than one,’ Smiles said. ‘And Koryk, I wasn’t aiming for your leg.’
‘I told you you weren’t immune,’ Bottle said.
‘I’m – never mind.’
I’m still alive, you were going to say. Then, wisely, decided not to.
Gesler crouched down in front of the captain. ‘We’re a hairless bunch,’ he said, ‘but otherwise pretty well mending. Captain, I don’t know what made you believe in Sinn, enough to run from the army, but I’m damned glad you did.’
‘You were all under my command,’ she said. ‘Then you got too far ahead of me. I did my best to find you, but the smoke, the flames – all too much.’ She looked away. ‘I didn’t want to leave it at that.’
‘How many did the legion lose?’ Gesler asked.
She shrugged. ‘Maybe two thousand. Soldiers were still dying. We were trapped, Fist Keneb and Baralta and about eight hundred, on the wrong side of the breach – until Sinn pushed the fire back – don’t ask me how. They sa
y she’s a High Mage of some kind. There was nothing addled about her that night, Sergeant, and I didn’t think she was addled when she tried getting back into the city.’
Nodding, Gesler was silent for a moment, then he rose. ‘I wish I could sleep…and it looks like I’m not alone in that. I wonder why that is…’
‘The stars, Sergeant,’ said Faradan Sort. ‘They’re glittering down.’
‘Aye, might be that and nothing more.’
‘Nothing more? I would think, more than enough.’
‘Aye.’ He looked down at the small bite on his right index finger. ‘All for a damned rat, too.’
‘All of you fools are probably infected with plague, now.’
He started, then smiled. ‘Let the bitch try.’
Balm rubbed the last crusted mud from his face, then scowled over at his corporal. ‘You, Deadsmell, you think I didn’t hear you praying and gibbering down there? You ain’t fooled me about nothing worth fooling about.’
The man, leaning against a rock, kept his eyes closed as he replied, ‘Sergeant, you keep trying, but we know. We all know.’
‘You all know what?’
‘Why you’re talking and talking and still talking.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You’re glad to be alive, Sergeant. And you’re glad your squad’s made it through in one piece, the only one barring Fid’s, and maybe Hellian’s, as far as I can tell. We were charmed and that’s all there was to it. Damned charmed, and you still can’t believe it. Well, neither can we, all right?’
Balm spat into the dust. ‘Listen to you mewling on and on. Sentimental tripe, all of it. I’m wondering who cursed me so that I’m still stuck with all of you. Fiddler I can understand. He’s a Bridgeburner. And gods run when they see a Bridgeburner. But you, you ain’t nobody, and that’s what I don’t get. In fact, if I did get it…’
Urb. He’s as bad as the priest who disappeared. The once-priest, what was his name again? What did he look like? Nothing like Urb, that’s for sure. But just as treacherous, treasonous, just as rotten and vile as whatever his name was.
He ain’t my corporal no more, that’s for sure. I want to kill him…oh gods, my head aches. My jaw…my teeth all loose.
Captain says she needs more sergeants. Well, she can have him, and whatever squad he ends up with has my prayers and pity. That’s for sure. Said there were spiders and maybe there were and maybe I wasn’t conscious so’s I couldn’t go crazy, which maybe I woulda done, but that don’t change one truth, and that’s for sure as sure can be that they crawled on me. All over me – I can still feel where their little sticky pointy legs dug into my skin. All over. Everywhere. And he just let ’em do it.
Maybe captain’s got a bottle of something. Maybe if I call her over and talk real sweet, real sane and reasonable, maybe then they’d untie me. I won’t kill Urb. I promise. You can have him, Captain. That’s what I’ll say. And she’ll hesitate – I would – but then nod – the idiot – and cut these ropes. And hand me a bottle and I’ll finish it. Finish it and everybody’ll say, hey, it’s all right, then. She’s back to normal.
And that’s when I’ll go for his throat. With my teeth – no, they’re loose, can’t use ’em for that. Find a knife, that’s what I have to do. Or a sword. I could trade the bottle for a sword. I did it the other way round, didn’t I? Half the bottle. I’ll drink the other half. Half a bottle, half a sword. A knife. Half a bottle for a knife. Which I’ll stick in his throat, then trade back, for the other half of the bottle – if I’m quick that should work fine. I get the knife and the whole bottle.
But first, she should untie me. That’s only fair.
I’m fine, as everyone can see. Peaceful, thoughtful—
‘Sergeant?’
‘What is it, Urb?’
‘I think you still want to kill me.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘The way you growl and gnash your teeth, I guess.’
Not me, that’s for sure.
Oh, that’s why my teeth still hurt so. I’ve made them even looser with all that gnashing. Gods, I used to dream stuff like this, my teeth all coming loose. The bastard punched me. No different from that man who disappeared, what was his name again?
Flashwit levered her bulk further down in the soft bed her weight had impressed in the sand. ‘I wish,’ she said.
Mayfly pursed her lips, then adjusted the nose she’d had broken more times than she could count. Moving it around made clicking sounds that she found, for some reason, vaguely satisfying. ‘You wish what?’
‘I wish I knew things, I guess.’
‘What things?’
‘Well, listen to Bottle there. And Gesler, and Deadsmell. They’re smart. They talk about things and all that other stuff. That’s what I wish.’
‘Yeah, well, all those brains are goin’ t’waste though, ain’t they?’
‘What do you mean?’
Mayfly snorted. ‘You and me, Flashwit, we’re heavy infantry, right? We plant our feet and we make the stand, and it don’t matter what it’s for. None a that don’t matter.’
‘But Bottle—’
‘Waste, Flashwit. They’re soldiers, for Treach’s sake. Soldiers. So who needs brains to soldier? They just get in the way of soldierin’ and it’s no good things gettin’ in the way. They figure things out and that gives ’em opinions and then maybe they don’t want t’fight as much no more.’
‘Why wouldn’t they want to fight no more ’cause of ’pinions?’
‘It’s simple, Flashwit. Trust me. If soldiers thought too much about what they’re doin’, they wouldn’t fight no more.’
‘So how come I’m so tired, anyway, only I can’t sleep?’
‘That’s simple, too.’
‘It is?’
‘Yeah, an’ it ain’t the stars neither. We’re waitin’ for the sun to come up. We all want to see that sun, because it was looking like we’d never see it no more.’
‘Yeah.’ A long contemplative silence, then, ‘I wish.’
‘Now what do you wish?’
‘Only, that I was smart as you, Mayfly. You’re so smart you got no ’pinions and that’s pretty smart an’ it makes me wonder if you ain’t goin’ t’waste being a heavy an’ that. A soljer.’
‘I ain’t smart, Flashwit. Trust me on that, an’ you know how I know?’
‘No, how?’
‘’Cause…down there…you an’ me, an’ Saltlick an’ Shortnose an’ Uru Hela an’ Hanno, us heavies. We didn’t get scared, not one of us, and that’s how I know.’
‘It wasn’t scary. Jus’ dark, an’ it seemed t’go on for ever an’ waitin’ for Bottle to get us through, well that got boring sometimes, you know.’
‘Right, and did the fire get you scared?’
‘Well, burnin’ hurt, didn’t it?’
‘Sure did.’
‘I didn’t like that.’
‘Me neither.’
‘So, what do you think we’re all gonna do now?’
‘The Fourteenth? Don’t know, save the world, maybe.’
‘Yeah. Maybe. I’d like that.’
‘Me too.’
‘Hey, is that the sun comin’ up?’
‘Well, it’s east where it’s getting brighter, so I guess, yeah, it must be.’
‘Great. I bin waiting for this. I think.’
Cuttle found sergeants Thom Tissy, Cord and Gesler gathered near the base of the slope leading up to the west road. It seemed they weren’t much interested in the rising sun. ‘You’re all looking serious,’ the sapper said.
‘We got a walk ahead of us,’ Gesler said, ‘that’s all.’
‘The Adjunct had no choice,’ Cuttle said. ‘That was a firestorm – there was no way she could have known there’d be survivors – digging under it all that way.’
Gesler glanced at the other two sergeants, then nodded. ‘It’s all right, Cuttle. We know. We’re not contemplating murder or anything.’
Cuttle turned to face the camp. ‘Some of the soldiers are thinking wrong on all of this.’
‘Aye,’ said Cord, ‘but we’ll put ’em straight on it before this day’s out.’
‘Good. Thing is,’ he hesitated, turning back to the sergeants, ‘I’ve been thinking on that. Who in Hood’s name is going to believe us? More like we did our own deal with the Queen of Dreams. After all, we got one of Leoman’s officers with us. And now, with the captain and Sinn going and getting themselves outlawed, well, it could be seen we’re all traitors or something.’
‘We made no deal with the Queen of Dreams,’ Cord said.
‘Are you sure about that?’
All three sergeants looked at him then.
Cuttle shrugged. ‘Bottle, he’s a strange one. Maybe he did make some deal, with somebody. Maybe the Queen of Dreams, maybe some other god.’
‘He’d have told us, wouldn’t he?’ Gesler asked.
‘Hard to say. He’s a sneaky bastard. I’m getting nervous about that damned rat biting every one of us, like it knew what it was doing and we didn’t.’
‘Just a wild rat,’ said Thom Tissy. ‘Ain’t nobody’s pet, so why wouldn’t it bite?’
Gesler said, ‘Listen, Cuttle, sounds like you’re just finding new things to worry about. What’s the point of doing that? What we’ve got ahead of us right now is a long walk, and us with no armour, no weapons and virtually no clothing – the sun’s gonna bake people crisp.’
‘We need to find a village,’ Cord said, ‘and hope to Hood plague ain’t found it first.’
‘There you go, Cuttle,’ Gesler said, grinning. ‘Now you got another thing to worry about.’
Paran began to suspect that his horse knew what was coming: nostrils flaring, tossing its head as it shied and stamped, fighting the reins all the way down the trail. The freshwater sea was choppy, silty waves in the bay rolling up to batter at sun-bleached limestone crags. Dead desert bushes poked skeletal limbs out of the muddy shallows and insects swarmed everywhere.
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 501