The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  “The stew will be cold,” Beneth muttered as they approached Bula’s Inn.

  Felisin wiped sweat from her brow. “That will be a relief.”

  “You’re not yet used to the heat. In a month or two you’ll feel the chill of night just like everyone else.”

  “These early hours still hold the day’s memory. I feel the cold of midnight and the hours beyond, Beneth.”

  “Move in with me, girl. I’ll keep you warm enough.”

  He was already on the edge of one of his sudden dark moods. She said nothing, hoping he would let it go for the moment.

  “Be careful of what you refuse,” Beneth rumbled.

  “Bula would take me to her bed,” she said. “You could watch, perhaps join in. She’d be sure to warm the bowls for us. Even second helpings.”

  “She’s old enough to be your mother,” Beneth growled.

  And you my father. But she heard his breathing change. “She’s round and soft and warm, Beneth. Think on that.”

  She knew he would, and the subject of moving in with him would drift away. For this night, at least. Heboric’s wrong. There’s no point in thinking about tomorrow. Just the next hour, each hour. Stay alive, Felisin, and live well if you can. One day you’ll find yourself face to face with your sister, and an ocean of blood pouring from Tavore’s veins won’t be enough, though all they hold will suffice. Stay alive, girl, that’s all you must do. Survive each hour, the next hour…

  She slipped her hand into Beneth’s as they reached the inn’s door, and felt in it the sweat born of the visions she had given him.

  One day, face to face, sister.

  Heboric was still awake, bundled in blankets and crouched beside the hearthfire. He glanced up as Felisin climbed into the room and locked the floor hatch. She collected a sheepskin wrap from a chest and pulled it around her shoulders.

  “Would you have me believe you’ve come to enjoy the life you’ve chosen, girl? Nights like these and I wonder.”

  “I thought you’d be tired of judgments by now, Heboric,” Felisin said as she collected a wineskin from a peg and picked through a pile of gourd shells seeking a clean one. “I take it Baudin’s not back yet. Seems even the minor chore of cleaning our cups is beyond him.” She found one that would pass without too close an inspection and squeezed wine into it.

  “That will dry you out,” Heboric observed. “Not your first of the night either, I’d wager.”

  “Don’t father me, old man.”

  The tattooed man sighed. “Hood take your sister anyway,” he muttered. “She wasn’t satisfied with seeing you dead. She’d rather turn her fourteen-year-old sister into a whore. If Fener has heard my prayers, Tavore’s fate will exceed her crimes.”

  Felisin drained half the cup, her eyes veiled as she studied Heboric. “I entered my sixteenth year last month,” she said.

  His eyes looked suddenly very old as he met her gaze for a moment before returning his attention to the hearth.

  Felisin refilled the cup, then joined Heboric at the square, raised fireplace. The burning dung in the groundstone basin was almost smokeless. The pedestal the basin sat on was glazed and filled with water. Kept hot by the fire, the water was used for washing and bathing, while the pedestal radiated enough heat to keep the night’s chill from the single room. Fragments of Dosii spun rug and reed mats cushioned the floorboards. The entire dwelling was raised on stilts five feet above the sands.

  Sitting down on a low wooden stool, Felisin pushed her chilled feet close to the pedestal. “I saw you at the carts today,” she said, her words slightly slurred. “Gunnip walked beside you with a switch.”

  Heboric grunted. “That amused them all day, Gunnip telling his guards he was swatting flies.”

  “Did he break skin?”

  “Aye, but Fener’s tracks heal me well, you know that.”

  “The wounds, yes, but not the pain—I can see, Heboric.”

  His glance was wry. “Surprised you can see anything, lass. Is that durhang I smell, too? Careful with that, the smoke will pull you into a deeper and darker shaft than Deep Mine could ever reach.”

  Felisin held out a pebble-sized black button. “I deal with my pain, you deal with yours.”

  He shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but not this time. You hold there in your hand a month’s pay for a Dosii guard. I’d advise you to use it in trade.”

  She shrugged, returning the durhang to the pouch at her belt. “I’ve nothing I need that Beneth won’t give me already. All I need do is ask.”

  “And you imagine he gives it to you freely.”

  She drank. “As good as. You’re being moved, Heboric. To Deepsoil. Starting tomorrow. No more Gunnip and his switch.”

  He closed his eyes. “Why does thanking you leave such a bitter taste in my mouth?”

  “My wine-soaked brain whispers hypocrisy.”

  She watched the color leave his face. Oh, Felisin, too much durhang, too much wine! Do I only do good for Heboric to give me salt for his wounds? I’ve no wish to be so cruel. She withdrew from beneath her tunic the food she had saved for him, leaned forward and placed the small wrapped bundle in his lap. “Sinker Lake has dropped another hand’s width.”

  He said nothing, eyes on the stumps at the ends of his wrists.

  Felisin frowned. There was something else she wanted to tell him, but her memory failed her. She finished the wine and straightened, running both hands back through her hair. Her scalp felt numb. She paused, seeing Heboric surreptitiously glance at her breasts, round and full under the stretched tunic. She held the pose a moment longer than was necessary, then slowly lowered her arms. “Bula has fantasies of you,” she said slowly. “It’s the…possibilities…that intrigue her. It would do you some good, Heboric.”

  He spun away off the stool, the untouched food bundle falling to the floor. “Hood’s breath, girl!”

  She laughed, watching him sweep aside the hanging that separated his cot from the rest of the room, then clumsily yank it back behind him. After a moment her laughter fell away, and she listened to the old man climb onto his cot. I’d hoped to make you smile, Heboric, she wanted to explain. And I didn’t want my laughter to sound so…hard. I’m not what you think I am.

  Am I?

  She retrieved the wrapped food and placed it on the shelf above the basin.

  An hour later, with Felisin lying awake on her cot and Heboric on his, Baudin returned. He stoked up the hearth, moving about quietly. Not drunk. She wondered where he’d been. She wondered where he went every night. It would not be worth asking him. Baudin had few words for anyone, and even fewer for her.

  After a moment she was forced to reconsider, as she heard the man flick a finger against Heboric’s divider. He responded promptly with low words she could not make out, and Baudin whispered something back. The conversation continued a minute longer, then Baudin softly grunted his laugh-grunt and moved off to his own bed.

  The two were planning something, but it was not this that shook her. It was that she was being excluded. A flash of anger followed this realization. I’ve kept them alive! I’ve made their lives easier—since the transport ship! Bula’s right, every man’s a bastard, good enough only to be used. Very well, see for yourselves what Skullcup is for everyone else, I’m done with favors. I’ll see you back on the carts, old man, I swear it. She found herself fighting tears, and knew she would do nothing of the sort. She needed Beneth, that was true enough, and she’d pay to keep him. But she needed Heboric and Baudin as well, and a part of her clung to them as a child to parents, denying the hardness that everywhere else filled her world. To lose that—to lose them—would be to lose…everything.

  Clearly, they thought that she’d sell their trust as readily as she did her own body, but it wasn’t true. I swear it’s not true.

  Felisin stared up into the darkness, tears streaming from her eyes. I’m alone. There’s just Beneth now. Beneth and his wine and his durhang and his body. She still ached between her
legs from when Beneth had finally joined her and Bula on the innkeeper’s huge bed.

  It was, she told herself, simply a matter of will to turn pain into pleasure.

  Survive each hour.

  The quayside market had begun drawing the morning crowds, reinforcing the illusion that this day was no different from any other. Chilled with a fear that even the rising sun could not master, Duiker sat cross-legged on the sea wall, his gaze traveling out over the bay into Sahul Sea, willing the return of Admiral Nok and the fleet.

  But those were orders even Coltaine could not countermand. The Wickan had no authority over the Malazan warships, and Pormqual’s recall had seen the Sahul Fleet depart Hissar’s harbor this very morning for the month-long journey to Aren.

  For all the pretense of normality, the departure had not gone unnoticed by Hissar’s citizens, and the morning market was increasingly shrill with laughter and excited voices. The oppressed had won their first victory, and all that would distinguish it from those to follow was its bloodlessness. Or so ran the sentiment.

  The only consolation Duiker could consider was that the Jhistal High Priest Mallick Rel had departed with the fleet. It was not a difficult thing, however, to imagine the report the man would prepare for Pormqual.

  A Malazan sail in the strait caught his eye, a small transport coming in from the northeast. Dosin Pali on the island, perhaps, or from farther up the coast. It would be an unscheduled arrival, making Duiker curious.

  He felt a presence at his side and glanced over to see Kulp clambering up onto the wide, low wall, dangling his legs down to the cloudy water ten paces below. “It’s done,” he said, as if the admission amounted to a confession of foul murder. “Word has been sent in. Assuming your friend is still alive, he’ll receive his instructions.”

  “Thank you, Kulp.”

  The mage shifted uneasily. He rubbed at his face, squinting at the transport ship as it entered the harbor. A patrol dory approached the craft as the crew struck the lone sail. Two men in glinting armor stood on deck, watching as the dory came alongside.

  One of the armored men leaned over the gunwale and addressed the harbor official. A moment later the dory’s oarsmen were swinging the craft around with obvious haste.

  Duiker grunted. “Did you see that?”

  “Aye,” Kulp growled.

  The transport glided toward the Imperial Pier, pushed along by a low bank of oars that had appeared close to the hull’s waterline. A moment later the pier-side oars withdrew back into the ship. Dockmen scrambled to receive the cast lines. A broad gangplank was being readied and horses were now visible on the deck.

  “Red Blades,” Duiker said as more armored men appeared on the transport, standing alongside their mounts.

  “From Dosin Pali,” Kulp said. “I recognize the first two: Baria Setral and his brother Mesker. They have another brother, Orto. He commands the Aren Company.”

  “The Red Blades,” the historian mused. “They’ve no illusions about the state of affairs. Word’s come they are attempting to assert control in other cities, and here we are to witness a doubling of their presence in Hissar.”

  “I wonder if Coltaine knows.”

  A new tension filled the market; heads had turned and eyes now observed as Baria and Mesker led their troops onto the pier. The Red Blades were equipped and presented for war. They bristled with weapons, with full chain leggings and the slitted visors on their helms lowered. Bows were strung, arrows loosened in their quivers. The horse-blades were unsheathed and jutting from their mounts’ forelegs.

  Kulp spat nervously. “Don’t like the look of this,” he muttered.

  “It looks as if—”

  “They intend to attack the market,” Kulp said. “This isn’t just for show, Duiker. Fener’s hoof!”

  The historian glanced at Kulp, his mouth dry. “You’ve opened your warren.”

  Not replying, the mage slid off the sea wall, eyes on the Red Blades who were now mounted and lining up at pier’s end, facing five hundred citizens who had fallen silent and were now backing away, filling the aisles between the carts and awnings. The contraction of the crowd would trigger panic, which was precisely what the Red Blades intended.

  Lances dangling from loops of rawhide around their wrists, the Red Blades nocked arrows, the horses quivering under them but otherwise motionless.

  The crowd seemed to shiver in places, as if the ground was shifting beneath it. Duiker saw figures moving, not away, but toward the facing line.

  Kulp took half a dozen steps toward the Red Blades.

  The figures pushed through the last of the crowd, pulling away their telaba cloaks and hoods, revealing leather armor with stitched black iron scales. Longknives flashed in gloved hands. Dark eyes in tanned, tattooed Wickan faces held cold and firm on Baria and Mesker Setral and their warriors.

  Ten Wickans now faced the forty-odd Red Blades, the crowd behind them as silent and as motionless as statues.

  “Stand aside!” Baria bellowed, his face dark with fury. “Or die!”

  The Wickans laughed with fearless derision.

  Pushing himself forward, Duiker followed Kulp as the mage strode hurriedly toward the Red Blades.

  Mesker snapped out a curse upon seeing Kulp approach. His brother glanced over, scowling.

  “Don’t be a fool, Baria!” the mage hissed.

  The commander’s eyes narrowed. “Fling magic at me and I’ll cut you down,” he said.

  Now at closer range, Duiker saw the Otataral links interwoven in Baria’s chain armor.

  “We shall cut this handful of barbarians down,” Mesker growled, “then properly announce our arrival in Hissar…with the blood of traitors.”

  “And five thousand Wickans will avenge the deaths of their kin,” Kulp said. “And not with quick sword strokes. No, you’ll be hung still alive from the seawall spikes. For the seagulls to play with. Coltaine’s not yet your enemy, Baria. Sheathe your weapons and report to the new Fist, Commander. To do otherwise will be to sacrifice your life and the lives of your soldiers.”

  “You ignore me,” Mesker said. “Baria is not my keeper, Mage.”

  Kulp sneered. “Be silent, pup. Where Baria leads, Mesker follows, or will you now cross blades with your brother?”

  “Enough, Mesker,” Baria rumbled.

  His brother’s tulwar rasped from its scabbard. “You dare command me!”

  The Wickans shouted encouragement. A few brave souls in the crowd behind them laughed.

  Mesker’s face was sickly with rage.

  Baria sighed. “Brother, this is not the time.”

  A mounted troop of Hissar Guard appeared above the heads of the crowd, pushing along the aisles between the market stalls. A chorus of hoots sounded to their left and Duiker and the others turned to see three score Wickan bowmen with arrows nocked and bows drawn on the Red Blades.

  Baria slowly raised his left hand, making a twisting gesture. His warriors lowered their own weapons.

  Snarling with disgust, Mesker slammed his tulwar back into its wooden scabbard.

  “Your escort has arrived,” Kulp said dryly. “It seems the Fist has been expecting you.”

  Duiker stood at the mage’s side and watched as Baria led the Red Blades forward to meet the Hissari troop. The historian shook himself. “Hood’s breath, Kulp, that was a chancy cast of the knuckles!”

  The man grunted. “You can always count on Mesker Setral,” he said. “As brainless as a cat and just as easy to distract. For a moment there I was hoping Baria would accept the challenge—whatever the outcome, there’d be one less Setral, and that’s an opportunity missed.”

  “Those disguised Wickans,” Duiker said, “were not part of any official welcome. Coltaine had infiltrated the market.”

  “A cunning dog, is Coltaine.”

  Duiker shook his head. “They’ve shown themselves now.”

  “Aye, and showed as well they were ready to lay down their lives to protect the citizens of Hissar.” />
  “Had Coltaine been here, I doubt he would have ordered those warriors forward, Kulp. Those Wickans were eager for a fight. Defending the market mob had nothing to do with it.”

  The mage rubbed his face. “Best hope the Hissari believe otherwise.”

  “Come,” Duiker said, “let us take wine—I know a place in Imperial Square, and on the way you can tell me how the Seventh has warmed to their new Fist.”

  Kulp barked a laugh as they began walking. “Respect maybe, but no warmth. He’s completely changed the drills. We’ve done one battlefield formation since he arrived, and that was the day he took command.”

  Duiker frowned. “I’d heard that he was working the soldiers to exhaustion, that he didn’t even need to enforce the curfew since everyone was so eager for sleep and the barracks were silent as tombs by the eighth bell. If not practicing wheels and turtles and shield-walls, then what?”

  “The ruined monastery on the hill south of the city—you know the one? Just foundations left except for the central temple, but the chest-high walls cover the entire hilltop like a small city. The sappers have built them up, roofed some of them over. It was a maze of alleys and cul-de-sacs to begin with, but Coltaine had the sappers turn it into a nightmare. I’d wager there’s soldiers still wandering around lost in there. The Wickan has us there every afternoon, mock battles, street control, assaulting buildings, break-out tactics, retrieving wounded. Coltaine’s warriors act the part of rioting mobs and looters, and I tell you, historian, they were born to it.” He paused for breath. “Every day…we bake under the sun on that bone-bleached hill, broken down to squad level, each squad assigned impossible objectives.” He grimaced. “Under this new Fist, each soldier of the Seventh has died a dozen times or more in mock battle. Corporal List has been killed in every exercise so far, the poor boy’s Hood-addled, and through it all those Wickan savages hoot and howl.”