The softness of his feminine eyes did not change as he studied the tulwars, remembering when he had been a very young child and these weapons, if balanced on their curved tips, could be made to stand if he set the silver pommels into his armpits, and, gripping the handles just above the hilts, he would pitch himself round the camp like an imp with but one leg. Not long after that, he was using weighted sticks carved to match these tulwars of his great-uncle’s. Working the patterns in the Gilani style, both afoot and atop a desert horse where he learned to perch on the balls of his feet and practise the lishgar efhanah, the leaping attack, the Edged Net. Many a night with bruised shoulders, then, until he learned how to roll clean after the mid-air attack was done, the three stuffed-grass dummies each sliced into pieces, the wind plucking at those golden grasses as they drifted in the dusty air. And he, rolling, upright once more, weapons at the ready.
He was not tall. He was not outspoken and his smile – rare as it was – was as shy as a young maiden’s. Men wanted him in their beds. So did women. But he was of the royal line, and his seed was the last seed, and one day he would give it to a queen, perhaps even an empress, as befitted his true station. In the meantime, he would let men use him as they would, and even find pleasure in that, harmless as it was. But he refused to spill his seed.
He stood now, and when the signal was given, he moved forward, light on his feet.
Skulldeath was twenty-three years old. Such was his discipline that he had not spilled seed once, not even in his sleep.
As the squad mage Mulvan Dreader would say later, Skulldeath was truly a man about to explode.
And a certain Master Sergeant on Malaz Island had got it right. Again.
Urb ran back from the Factor’s house as fast as he could, angling his shield to cover his right shoulder. The damned woman! Standing there with a damned cask lid with a flight of lances about to wing her way. Oh, her soldiers worshipped her all right, and so blind was that worship that not one of them could see all that Urb did just to keep the fool woman alive. He was exhausted and a nervous wreck besides and now – this time – it looked as if he would be too late.
Five paces from Hellian and out went a half-dozen lances, two winging to intercept Urb. Skidding as he pivoted round behind his shield, he lost sight of her.
One lance darted past a hand’s width from his face. The other struck true against the shield, the iron head punching through to impale his upper arm, pinning it to his side. The impact spun Urb round and he staggered as the lance pulled at him, and, grunting, he slid down on his knees, the hard cobbles driving shocks up his legs. He slammed his sword-hand down – still clutching the weapon – to keep from pitching forward, and heard a knuckle crack.
At that instant, the world exploded white.
Four lances speeding Hellian’s way came close to sobering her up. Crouching, she lifted her flimsy, undersized shield, only to have it hammered from her hand in a splintering concussion that sent it spinning, the snapped foreshafts of two lances buried deep in the soaked, heavy, wonderful-smelling wood. Then her helm was torn from her head with a deafening clang, even as she was struck a glancing blow on her right shoulder that ripped away the leather shingles of her armour. That impact turned her right round so that she faced up the street, and, upon seeing the clay bottle she had thrown away moments earlier, she dived towards it.
Better to die with one last mouthful—
The air above her whistled as she sailed through the air and she saw maybe a dozen lances flit overhead.
She slammed chest-first on the dusty cobbles, all breath punched from her lungs and stared, bug-eyed, as the bottle leapt of its own accord into the air. Then she was lifted by her feet and flipped straight over to thump hard on her back, and above her the blue sky was suddenly grey with dust and gravel, stone chips, red bits, all raining down.
She could not hear a thing, and that first desperate breath was so thick with dust that she convulsed in a fit of coughing. Twisting onto her side, she saw Urb maybe six paces away. The idiot had got himself skewered and looked even more stunned than usual. His face was white with dust except the blood on his lips from a tooth gash, and he was staring dumbly down the street to where all the Edur were – might be they were charging them now so she’d better find her sword—
She’d just sat up when a hand slapped her shoulder and she glared up at an unfamiliar face – a Kanese woman frowning intently at her. With a voice that seemed far away she said, ‘Still with us, Sergeant? You shouldn’t ever be that close to a cusser, you know.’
And then she was gone.
Hellian blinked. She squinted down the street and saw an enormous crater where the Edur had been. And body parts, and drifting dust and smoke.
And four more marines, two of them Dal Honese, loosing quarrels into a side street then scattering as one of them threw a sharper in the same direction.
Hellian crawled over to Urb.
He’d managed to pull the lance out of his arm which had probably hurt, and there was plenty of blood now, pooling beneath him. His eyes had the look of a butchered cow though maybe not as dead as that but getting there.
Another marine arrived, another stranger. Black-haired, pale skin. He knelt down beside Urb.
‘You,’ Hellian said.
The man glanced over. ‘None of your wounds look to kill you, Sergeant. But your friend here is going fast, so let me do my work.’
‘What squad, damn you?’
‘Tenth. Third Company.’
A healer. Well, good. Fix Urb right up so she could kill him. ‘You’re Nathii, aren’t you?’
‘Sharp woman,’ he muttered as he began weaving magic over the huge torn hole in Urb’s upper arm. ‘Probably even sharper when you’re sober.’
‘Never count on that, Cutter.’
‘I’m not really a cutter, Sergeant. I’m a combat mage, but we can’t really be picky about those things any more, can we? I’m Mulvan Dreader.’
‘Hellian. Eighth Squad, the Fourth.’
He shot her a sudden look. ‘Really. You one of the ones crawled out under Y’Ghatan?’
‘Yeah. Urb’s gonna live?’
The Nathii nodded. ‘Be on a stretcher for a while, though. All the lost blood.’ He straightened and looked round. ‘Where are the rest of your soldiers?’
Hellian looked over at the Factor’s house. The cusser explosion seemed to have knocked it flat. She grunted. ‘Damned if I know, Mulvan. You don’t happen to have a flask of something on you, do you?’
But the mage was frowning at the wreckage of the collapsed house. ‘I hear calls for help,’ he said.
Hellian sighed. ‘Guess you found ’em after all, Mulvan Dreader. Meaning we’re gonna have to dig ’em out.’ Then she brightened. ‘But that’ll work us up a thirst now, won’t it?’
The multiple crack of sharpers outside the tavern and the biting snap of shrapnel striking the building’s front sent the Malazans inside flinching back. Screams erupted outside, wailing up into the street’s dust-filled air. Fiddler watched Gesler grab Stormy to keep him from charging out there – the huge Falari was reeling on his feet – then he turned to Mayfly, Corabb and Tarr. ‘Let’s meet our allies, then, but stay sharp. Rest of you, stay here, bind wounds – Bottle, where’s Koryk and Smiles?’
But the mage shook his head. ‘They went east side of the village, Sergeant.’
‘All right, you three with me, then. Bottle – can you do something for Stormy?’
‘Aye.’
Fiddler readied his crossbow, then led the way to the tavern entrance. At the threshold he crouched down, peering through the dust.
Allies all right. Blessed marines, a half-dozen, walking through the sprawled Edur bodies and silencing the screamers with quick thrusts of their swords. Fiddler saw a sergeant, South Dal Honese, short and wide and black as onyx. The woman at his side was half a head taller, pale-skinned and grey-eyed, and nearly round but in a way that had yet to sag. Behind these two stood another Dal Hon
ese, this one wrinkled with pierced everything – ears, nose, wattle, cheeks – the gold ornaments a startling contrast to his dark scowling face. A damned shaman.
Fiddler approached, his eyes on the sergeant. There was fighting still going on, but nowhere close. ‘How many of you?’
‘Seventeen to start,’ the man replied. He paused to look down at the barbaric tusk-sword in his hands. ‘Just took off an Edur’s head with this,’ he said, then looked up. ‘My first kill.’
Fiddler gaped. ‘How in Hood’s name did you get this far from the damned coast, then? What are you all, Soletaken bats?’
The Dal Honese grimaced. ‘We stole a fisher boat and sailed up.’
The woman at his side spoke. ‘We were the southmost squads, moving east till we hit the river, then it was either wading waist-deep in swamp muck or taking to the water. Worked fine until a few nights ago, when we ran straight into a Letherii galley. We lost a few that night,’ she added.
Fiddler stared at her a moment longer. All round and soft-looking, except for those eyes. Hood take me, this one could pluck the skin off a man one tiny strip at a time with one hand while doing herself with the other. He looked away, back to the sergeant. ‘What company?’
‘Third. I’m Badan Gruk, and you’re Fiddler, aren’t you?’
‘Yeggetan,’ muttered the shaman with a warding gesture.
Badan Gruk turned to the pale woman. ‘Ruffle, take Vastly and Reliko and work west until you meet up with Primly. Then back here.’ He faced Fiddler again. ‘We caught ’em good, I think.’
‘Thought I heard a cusser a while back.’
A nod. ‘Primly had the sappers. Anyway, the Edur pulled back, so I suppose we scared ’em.’
‘Moranth munitions will do that.’
Badan Gruk glanced away again. He seemed strangely skittish. ‘We never expected to run into any squads this far east,’ he said. ‘Not unless they took to the water like we did.’ He met Fiddler’s eyes. ‘You’re barely a day from Letheras, you know.’
Seven Edur had turned the game on Koryk and Smiles, pushing them into a less than promising lane between decrepit, leaning tenements, that then led to a most quaint killing ground blocked by stacks of timber on all sides but the one with the alley mouth.
Pushing Smiles behind him as he backed away from the Edur – who crowded the alley, slowly edging forward – Koryk readied his sword. Hand-and-a-half fighting now that he’d lost his shield. If the bastards threw lances, he’d be in trouble.
The thought made him snort. Him against seven Tiste Edur and all he had behind him was a young woman who’d used up all her throwing knives and was left with a top-heavy gutter that belonged in the hands of a butcher. Trouble? Only if they threw lances.
But these Edur weren’t interested in skewering them from a distance. They wanted to close, and Koryk was not surprised by that. Like Seti, these grey gaunts. Face to face, aye. That is where true glory is found. As they reached the mouth of the alley, Koryk lifted the tip of his sword and waved them forward.
‘Stay right back,’ he said to Smiles who crouched behind him. ‘Give me plenty of room—’
‘To do what, you oaf? Die in style? Just cut a few and I’ll slide in low and finish ’em.’
‘And get a pommel through the top of your head? No, stay back.’
‘I ain’t staying back t’get raped by all the ones you were too incompetent to kill before dying yourself, Koryk.’
‘Fine! I’ll punch my pommel through your thick skull, then!’
‘Only time you’re ever gettin’ inside of me, so go ahead and enjoy it.’
‘Oh, believe me, I will—’
They might have gone on, and on, but the Edur had fanned out, four in front and three behind, and now they rushed forward.
Koryk and Smiles argued often, later, about whether their saviour descended on wings or just had a talent for leaping extraordinary distances, for he arrived in a blur, sailing right across the path of the first four Tiste Edur, and in that silent flight he seemed to writhe, amidst flashing heavy iron blades. A flurry of odd snicking sounds and then the man was past – and should have collided badly with a stack of rough-barked wood. Instead, one of those tulwars touched down tip first on a log, and pivoting on that single point of contact the man twisted round to land in a cat-like crouch against the slope of timbers – at an impossible to maintain angle, but that didn’t matter since he was already springing back the way he had come, this time sailing over the collapsing, blood-drenched forms of four Tiste Edur. Snick snick snicksnick – and the back three Edur toppled.
He landed again, just short of the opposite timber wall this time, head ducking and shoulder seeming to barely brush the ground before he tumbled right over, touched one foot on a horizontal log and used it to twist round before landing balanced on the other foot now drawn tight beneath him. Facing the seven corpses he had just felled.
And facing two Malazan marines who, for once and just this once, had precisely nothing to say.
The marines of the 3rd and 4th Companies gathered in front of the tavern, stood or sat on the bloodstained cobbles of the main street. Wounds were tended to here and there, while others repaired armour or filed the nicks from sword edges.
Fiddler sat on the edge of a water trough near the hitching post to one side of the tavern entrance, taking stock. Since the coast, the three other squads of 4th Company had taken losses. Gone from Gesler’s squad were Sands and Uru Hela. From Hellian’s, Lutes and Tavos Pond, both of whom had died in this cursed village, while from Urb’s both Hanno and now Bowl were dead, and Saltlick had lost his left hand. Fiddler’s own squad had, thus far, come through unscathed, and that made him feel guilty. Like one of Hood’s minions, one in the row just the other side of the gate. Crow feathers in hand, or wilted roses, or sweetcakes, or any of the countless other gifts the dead were eager to hand their newly arrived kin – gods below, Smiles is turning me into another Kanese with all these absurd beliefs. Ain’t nobody waiting other side of Hood’s Gate, unless it’s to jeer.
The two sergeants from the 3rd came over. Badan Gruk, whom Fiddler had met earlier, and the Quon, Primly. They made an odd pair, but that was always the way, wasn’t it?
Primly gave Fiddler a strangely deferential nod. ‘We’re fine with this,’ he said.
‘With what?’
‘Your seniority, Fiddler. So, what do we do now?’
Grimacing, Fiddler looked away. ‘Any losses?’
‘From this scrap? No. Those Edur pulled out fast as hares in a kennel. A lot shakier than we’d expected.’
‘They don’t like the shield to shield fighting,’ Fiddler said, scratching at his filthy beard. ‘They’ll do it, aye, especially when they’ve got Letherii troops with them. But of late they dropped that tactic, since with our munitions we made it a costly one. No, they’ve been hunting us, ambushing us, driving us hard. Their traditional way of fighting, I’d guess.’
Primly grunted. ‘Driving you, you said. So, likely there’s a damned army waiting for us this side of Letheras. The anvil.’
‘Aye, which is why I think we should wait here a bit. It’s risky, I know, since the Edur might return and next time there might be a thousand of them.’
Badan Gruk’s thinned eyes grew yet thinner. ‘Hoping your Fist is going to catch up with a lot more marines.’
‘Your Fist now, too, Badan Gruk.’
A sharp nod, then a scowl. ‘We only got thrown into the mix because of the 4th’s losses at Y’Ghatan.’
‘The Adjunct keeps making changes,’ Primly said. ‘We don’t have Fists in charge of nothing but marines – not since Crust’s day—’
‘Well, we do now. We’re not in the Malazan Army any more, Primly.’
‘Yes, Fiddler, I’m aware of that.’
‘That’s my suggestion,’ Fiddler repeated. ‘Wait here for a while. Let our mages get some rest. And hope Keneb shows and hope he’s got more than a few dozen marines with him. Now, I’m not much for th
is seniority thing. I’d rather we sergeants just agreed on matters, so I’m not holding you to anything.’
‘Gesler agrees with you, Fiddler?’
‘Aye.’
‘What of Hellian and Urb?’
Fiddler laughed. ‘Tavern’s still wet, Primly.’
The sun had gone down, but no-one seemed eager to go anywhere. Traffic in and out of the tavern occurred whenever another cask needed bringing out. The tavern’s main room was a slaughterhouse no-one was inclined to stay in for very long.
Smiles walked over to where Koryk sat. ‘His name’s Skulldeath, if you can believe that.’
‘Who?’
‘Nice try. You know who. The one who could kill you with his big toe.’
‘Been thinking about that attack,’ Koryk said. ‘Only works if they’re not expecting it.’
Smiles snorted.
‘No, really. I see someone flying at me I cut him in half. It’s not like he can retreat or change his mind, is it?’
‘You’re an idiot,’ she said, then nudged him. ‘Hey, met your twin brother, too. His name is Vastly Blank and between you two I’d say he got all the brains.’
Koryk glowered at her. ‘What is it you want with me, Smiles?’
She shrugged. ‘Skulldeath. I’m going to make him mine.’
‘Yours?’
‘Yes. Did you know he’s saving himself for a woman of royal blood?’
‘That’s not what the men inclined that way are saying.’
‘Where’d you hear that?’
‘Besides, you’re hardly royal blood, Smiles. Queen of shell-shuckers won’t cut it.’
‘That’s why I need you to lie for me. I was a Kanese princess – sent into the Malazan Army to keep the Claw from finding me—’
The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen Page 670