The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Few among the outriders and the column’s head paid it much attention. It looked like nothing more than a cairn marker, a huge, elongated slab of stone tilted upward at the southernmost end, as if pointing the way across the Nenoth Odhan to Aren or some other, more recent destination.

  Corporal List had led the historian to it in silence while the others prepared rigging to assist in the task of guiding the wagons down the steep, winding descent to the plain’s barren floor.

  “The youngest son,” List said, staring down at the primitive tomb. His face was frightening to look at, for it wore a father’s grief, as raw as if the child’s death was but yesterday—a grief that had, if anything, grown with the tortured, unfathomable passage of two hundred thousand years.

  He stands guard still, that Jaghut ghost. The statement, a silent utterance that was both simple and obvious, nevertheless took the historian’s breath away. How to comprehend this….

  “How old?” Duiker’s voice was as parched as the Odhan that awaited them.

  “Five. The T’lan Imass chose this place for him. The effort of killing him would have proved too costly, given that the rest of the family still awaited them. So they dragged the child here—shattered his bones, every one, as many times as they could on so small a frame—then pinned him beneath this rock.”

  Duiker had thought himself beyond shock, beyond even despair, yet his throat closed up at List’s toneless words. The historian’s imagination was too sharp for this, raising images in his mind that seared him with overwhelming sorrow. He forced himself to look away, watched the activities among the soldiers and Wickans thirty paces distant. He realized that they worked mostly in silence, speaking only as their tasks required, and then in low, strangely subdued tones.

  “Yes,” List said. “The father’s emotions are a pall unrelieved by time—so powerful, so rending, those emotions, that even the earth spirits had to flee. It was that or madness. Coltaine should be informed—we must move quickly across this land.”

  “And ahead? On the Nenoth plain?”

  “It gets worse. It was not just the children that the T’lan Imass pinned—still breathing, still aware—beneath rocks.”

  “But why?” The question ripped from Duiker’s throat.

  “Pogroms need no reason, sir, none that can weather challenge, in any case. Difference in kind is the first recognition, the only one needed, in fact. Land, domination, pre-emptive attacks—all just excuses, mundane justifications that do nothing but disguise the simple distinction. They are not us. We are not them.”

  “Did the Jaghut seek to reason with them, Corporal?”

  “Many times, among those not thoroughly corrupted by power—the Tyrants—but you see, there was always an arrogance in the Jaghut, and it was a kind that could claw its way up your back when face to face. Each Jaghut’s interest was with him or herself. Almost exclusively. They viewed the T’lan Imass no differently from the way they viewed ants underfoot, herds on the grasslands, or indeed the grass itself. Ubiquitous, a feature of the landscape. A powerful, emergent people, such as the T’lan Imass were, could not but be stung—”

  “To the point of swearing a deathless vow?”

  “I don’t believe that, at first, the T’lan Imass realized how difficult the task of eradication would be. Jaghut were very different in another way—they did not flaunt their power. And many of their efforts in self-defense were…passive. Barriers of ice—glaciers—they swallowed the lands around them, even the seas, swallowed whole continents, making them impassable, unable to support the food the mortal Imass required.”

  “So they created a ritual that would make them immortal—”

  “Free to blow like the dust—and in the age of ice, there was plenty of dust.”

  Duiker’s gaze caught Coltaine standing near the edge of the trail. “How far,” he asked the man beside him, “until we leave this area of…of sorrow?”

  “Two leagues, no more than that. Beyond are Nenoth’s true grasslands, hills…tribes, each one very protective of what little water they possess.”

  “I think I had better speak with Coltaine.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Dry March, as it came to be called, was its own testament to sorrow. Three vast, powerful tribes awaited them, two of them, the Tregyn and the Bhilard, striking at the beleaguered column like vipers. With the third, situated at the very western edge of the plains—the Khundryl—there was no immediate contact, though it was felt that that would not last.

  The pathetic herd accompanying the Chain of Dogs died on that march, animals simply collapsing, even as the Wickan cattle-dogs converged with fierce insistence that they rise—dead or no—and resume the journey. When butchered, these carcasses were little more than ropes of leathery flesh.

  Starvation joined the terrible ravaging thirst, for the Wickans refused to slaughter their horses and attended them with eloquent fanaticism that no one dared challenge. The warriors sacrificed of themselves to keep their mounts alive. One petition from Nethpara’s Council, offering to purchase a hundred horses, was returned to the nobleborn leader smeared in human excrement.

  The twin vipers struck again and again, contesting every league, the attacks increasing in ferocity and frequency, until it was clear that a major clash approached, only days away.

  In the column’s wake followed Korbolo Dom’s army, a force that had grown with the addition of forces from Tarxian and other coastal settlements, and was now at least five times the size of Coltaine’s Seventh and his Wickan clans. The renegade commander’s measured pursuit—leaving engagement to the wild plains tribes—was ominous in itself.

  He would be there for the imminent battle, without doubt, and was content to wait until then.

  The Chain of Dogs—its numbers swollen by new refugees fleeing Bylan—crawled on, coming within sight of what the maps indicated was the Nenoth Odhan’s end, where hills rose in a wall across the southern horizon. The trader track cut through the only substantial passage, a wide river valley between the Bylan’sh Hills to the east and the Saniphir Hills to the west, the track running for seven leagues, opening out on a plain that faced the ancient tel of Sanimon, then wrapped around it to encompass the Sanith Odhan and, beyond that, the Geleen Plain, the Dojal Odhan—and the city of Aren itself.

  No relief army emerged from Sanimon Valley. A profound sense of isolation descended like a shroud on the train, even as the valley’s flanking hills began to reveal, in the day’s dying light, twin encampments, both vast, of tribesmen—the main forces of the Tregyn and the Bhilard.

  Here, then, at the mouth of the ancient valley…here it would be.

  “We’re dying,” Lull muttered as he came up alongside the historian on his way to the briefing. “And I don’t mean just figuratively, old man. I lost eleven soldiers today. Throats swollen so bad with thirst they couldn’t draw breath.” He waved at a fly buzzing his face. “Hood’s breath, I’m swimming in this armor—by the time we’re done, we’ll all look like T’lan Imass.”

  “I can’t say I appreciate the analogy, Captain.”

  “Wasn’t expecting you to.”

  “Horse piss. That’s what the Wickans are drinking these days.”

  “Aye, same for my crew. They’re neighing in their sleep, and more than one’s died from it.”

  Three dogs loped past them, the huge one named Bent, a female, and the lapdog scrambling in their wake.

  “They’ll outlive us all,” Lull grumbled. “Those damned beasts!”

  The sky deepened overhead, the first stars pushing through the cerulean gauze.

  “Gods, I’m tired.”

  Duiker nodded. Oh, indeed, we’ve traveled far, friend, and now stand face to face with Hood. He takes the weary as readily as the defiant. Offers the same welcoming grin.

  “Something in the air tonight, Historian. Can you feel it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe Hood’s Warren has drawn closer.”

  “It has that feel, does
n’t it?”

  They arrived at the Fist’s command tent, entered.

  The usual faces were arrayed before them. Nil and Nether, the last remaining warlocks; Sulmar and Chenned, Bult and Coltaine himself. Each had become a desiccated mockery of the will and strength once present in their varied miens.

  “Where’s Bungle?” Lull asked, finding his usual camp-chair.

  “Listening to her sergeant, I’d guess,” Bult said, with a ghost of a grin.

  Coltaine had no time for idle talk. “Something approaches, this night. The warlocks have sensed it, though that is all they can say. We are faced with preparing for it.”

  Duiker looked to Nether. “What kind of sense?”

  She shrugged, then sighed. “Vague. Troubled, even outrage—I don’t know, Historian.”

  “Sensed anything like it before? Even remotely?”

  “No.”

  Outrage.

  “Draw the refugees close,” Coltaine commanded the captains. “Double the pickets—”

  “Fist,” Sulmar said, “we face a battle tomorrow—”

  “Aye, and rest is needed. I know.” The Wickan began pacing, but it was a slower pace than usual. It had lost its smoothness as well, its ease and elegance. “And more, we are greatly weakened—the water casks are bone dry.”

  Duiker winced. Battle? No, tomorrow will see a slaughter. Soldiers unable to fight, unable to defend themselves. The historian cleared his throat, made to speak, then stopped. One word, yet even to voice it would be to offer the cruellest illusion. One word.

  Coltaine was staring at him. “We cannot,” he said softly.

  I know. For the rebellion’s warriors as much as for us, the end to this must be with blood.

  “The soldiers are beyond digging trenches,” Lull said into the heavy, all-too-aware silence.

  “Holes, then.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Holes. To break mounted charges, snap legs, send screaming beasts into the dust.

  The briefing ended then, abruptly, as the air was suddenly charged, and whatever threatened to arrive now announced itself with a brittle crackle, a mist of something oily, like sweat clogging the air.

  Coltaine led the group outside, to find the bristling atmosphere manifested tenfold beneath the night’s sparkling canopy. Horses bucked. Cattle-dogs howled.

  Soldiers were rising like specters. Weapons rustled.

  In the open space just beyond the foremost pickets, the air split asunder with a savage, ripping sound.

  Three pale horses thundered from that rent, followed by three more, then another three, all harnessed, all screaming with terror. Behind them came a massive carriage, a fire-scorched, gaudily painted leviathan riding atop six spoked wheels that were taller than a man. Smoke trailed like thick strands of raw wool from the carriage, from the horses themselves, and from the three figures visible behind the last three chargers.

  The white, screaming train was at full gallop—as if in headlong flight from whatever warren it had come from—and the carriage pitched wildly, alarmingly, as the beasts plunged straight for the pickets.

  Wickans scattered to either side.

  Staring with disbelief, Duiker saw all three figures sawing the reins, bellowing, flinging themselves against the backrest of their tottering perch.

  The horses drove hooves into the earth, biting down on their momentum, the towering carriage slewing behind them, raising a cloud of smoke, dust and an emanation that the historian recognized with a jolt of alarm as outrage. The outrage, he now understood, of a warren—and its god.

  Behind the lead carriage came another, then another, each pitching to one side or the other to avoid collision as they skidded to a halt.

  As soon as the lead carriage ceased its headlong plunge, figures poured from it, armored men and women, shouting, roaring commands that no one seemed to pay any attention to, and waving blackened, smeared and dripping weapons.

  A moment later, even as the other two carriages stopped, a loud bell clanged.

  The frenzied, seemingly aimless activities of the figures promptly ceased. Weapons were lowered, and sudden silence filled the air behind the fading echo of the bell. Snorting and stamping, the lathered horses tossed their heads, ears twitching, nostrils wide.

  The lead carriage was no more than fifteen paces from where Duiker and the others stood.

  The historian saw a severed hand clinging to an ornate projection on one side of the carriage. After a moment it fell to the ground.

  A tiny barred door opened and a man emerged, with difficulty squeezing his considerable bulk through the aperture. He was dressed in silks that were drenched in sweat. His round, glistening face revealed the passing echoes of some immense, all-consuming effort. In one hand he carried a stoppered bottle.

  Stepping clear, he faced Coltaine and raised the bottle. “You, sir,” he said in strangely accented Malazan, “have much to answer for.” Then he grinned, displaying a row of gold-capped, diamond-studded teeth. “Your exploits tremble the warrens! Your journey is wildfire in every street in Darujhistan, no doubt in every city, no matter how distant! Have you no notion how many beseech their gods on your behalf? Coffers overflow! Grandiose plans of salvation abound! Vast organizations have formed, their leaders coming to us, to the Trygalle Trade Guild, to pay for our fraught passage—though,” he added in a lower tone, “all the Guild’s passages are fraught, which is what makes us so expensive.” He unstoppered the bottle. “The great city of Darujhistan and its remarkable citizens—dismissing in an instant your Empire’s voracious desires on it and on themselves—bring you this gift! By way of the shareholders—” he waved back at the various men and women behind him, now gathering into a group—” of Trygalle—the foulest-tempered, greediest creatures imaginable, but that is neither here nor there, for here we are, are we not? Let it not be said of the citizens of Darujhistan that they are insensitive to the wondrous, and, dear sir, you are truly wondrous.”

  The preposterous man stepped forward, suddenly solemn. He spoke softly. “Alchemists, mages, sorcerers have all contributed, offering vessels with capacities belying their modest containers. Coltaine of Crow Clan, Chain of Dogs, I bring you food. I bring you water.”

  Karpolan Demesand was one of the original founders of the Trygalle Trade Guild, a citizen of the small fortress city of the same name, situated south of the Lamatath Plain on the continent of Genabackis. Born of a dubious alliance between a handful of mages, Karpolan among them, and the city’s benefactors—a motley collection of retired pirates and wreckers—the Guild came to specialize in expeditions so risk-laden as to make the average merchant pale. Each caravan was protected by a heavily armed company of shareholders—guards who possessed a direct stake in the venture, ensuring the fullest exploitation of their abilities. And such abilities were direly needed, for the caravans of the Trygalle Trade Guild—as was clear from the very outset—traveled the warrens.

  “We knew we had a challenge on our hands,” Karpolan Demesand said with a beatific, glittering smile as they sat in Coltaine’s command tent, with only the Fist and Duiker for company because everyone else was working outside, dispensing the caravan’s life-giving supplies with all speed. “That foul Warren of Hood is wrapped about you tighter than a funeral shroud on a corpse…if you’ll forgive the image. The key is to ride fast, to stop for nothing, then get out as soon as humanly possible. In the lead wagon, I maintain the road, with every sorcerous talent at my command—a grueling journey, granted, but then again, we don’t come cheap.”

  “I still find it hard to fathom,” Duiker said, “that the citizens of Darujhistan, fifteen hundred leagues distant, should even know of what’s happening here, much less care.”

  Karpolan’s eyes thinned. “Ah, well, perhaps I exaggerated somewhat—the heat of the moment, I confess. You must understand—soldiers who not long ago were bent on conquering Darujhistan are now locked in a war with the Pannion Domin, a tyranny that would dearly love to swallow the Blue City if it
could. Dujek Onearm, once Fist of the Empire and now outlaw to the same, has become an ally. And this, certain personages in Darujhistan know well, and appreciate…”

  “But there is more to it,” Coltaine said quietly.

  Karpolan smiled a second time. “Is this water not sweet? Here, let me pour you another cup.”

  They waited, watching the trader refill the three tin cups arrayed on the small table between them. When he was done, Karpolan sighed and sat back in the plush chair he had had removed from the carriage. “Dujek Onearm.” The name was spoken half in benediction, half in wry dismay. “He sends his greetings, Fist Coltaine. Our office in Darujhistan is small, newly opened, you understand. We do not advertise our services. Not openly, in any case. Frankly, those services include activities that are, on occasion, clandestine in nature. We trade not only in material goods but in information, the delivery of gifts, of people themselves…and other creatures.”

  “Dujek Onearm was the force behind this mission,” Duiker said.

  Karpolan nodded. “With financial assistance from a certain cabal in Darujhistan, yes. His words were thus: ‘The Empress cannot lose such leaders as Coltaine of the Crow Clan.’ ” The trader grinned. “Extraordinary for an outlaw under a death sentence, wouldn’t you say?” He leaned forward and held out a hand, palm up. Something shimmered into existence on it, a small oblong bottle of smoky gray glass on a silver chain. “And, from an alarmingly mysterious mage among the Bridgeburners, this gift was fashioned.” He held it out to Coltaine. “For you. Wear it. At all times, Fist.”

  The Wickan scowled and made no move to accept it.

  Karpolan’s smile was wistful. “Dujek is prepared to pull rank on this, friend—”

  “An outlaw pulling rank?”

  “Ah, well, I admit I voiced the same query. His reply was this: ‘Never underestimate the Empress.’ ”