The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Fear was holding three at bay, and behind him stood the sword, upright and freed from the ice, its point jammed into the frozen ground. It seemed the Jheck were desperate to claim it.

  Trull struck at the closest of Fear’s opponents, iron tip punching deep into the savage’s neck. Blood sprayed, jetted down the spear-shaft. He tore the weapon loose, in time to see the last of the Jheck in front of Fear wheel away, mortally wounded by a sword-thrust.

  Spinning round, Trull saw Binadas go down beneath a mass of Jheck. Shadows then enveloped the writhing figures.

  Rhulad was nowhere to be seen.

  Down below, Theradas and Midik had met the wolf’s charge, and the huge beast was on its side, skewered by spears, legs kicking even as Theradas stepped in with his broad-bladed cutlass. Two more wolves were closing in, alongside them a half-dozen Jheck.

  Another score of the savages were ascending the slope.

  Trull readied his weapon.

  Nearby, Binadas was climbing free of a mound of corpses. He was sheathed in blood, favouring his right side.

  ‘Behind us, Binadas,’ Fear commanded. ‘Trull, get on my left. Quickly.’

  ‘Where is Rhulad?’

  Fear shook his head.

  As Trull moved to his brother’s left he scanned the bodies sprawled on the snow. But they were all Jheck. Even so, the belief struck him hard as a blow to his chest. They were going to die here. They were going to fail.

  The savages on the slope charged.

  Antlers flew from their hands, dagger-sharp tines flashing as the deadly weapons spun end over end.

  Trull shouted, warding with his spear as he ducked beneath the whirling onslaught. One flew past his guard, a tine clipping his left knee. He gasped at the pain and felt the sudden spurt of blood beneath his leggings, but his leg held his weight and he remained upright.

  Behind the flung weapons, the Jheck arrived in a rush.

  A dozen heartbeats on the defensive, then the Edur warriors found openings for counter-attacks almost simultaneously. Sword and spear bit flesh, and two of the Jheck were down.

  A shriek from behind Trull and Fear, and the savages recoiled, then in unison darted to their right—

  —as Rhulad leapt into their midst, the long, bell-hilted sword in his hands.

  A wild slash, and a Jheck head pitched away from shoulders to bounce and roll down the slope.

  Another chop, a gush of blood.

  Both Fear and Trull rushed to close with the combatants—

  —even as stabbing spears found their way into Rhulad from all sides. He shrieked, blood-slick blade wavering over his head. Then he sagged. A shove toppled him onto his back, the sword still in his hands.

  The surrounding Jheck darted away, then ran down the slope, weapons dropping or flung aside in sudden panic.

  Trull arrived, skidding on the blood-slick ice, the wound in his leg forgotten as he knelt at Rhulad’s side.

  ‘They’re withdrawing,’ Fear said between harshly drawn breaths, moving to stand guard before Trull and Rhulad.

  Numbed, Trull tore off a gauntlet and set his hand against Rhulad’s neck, seeking a pulse.

  Binadas staggered over, settling down opposite Trull. ‘How does he fare, brother?’

  Trull looked up, stared until Binadas glanced up and locked gazes.

  ‘Rhulad is dead,’ Trull said, dropping his eyes and seeing now, for the first time, the massive impaling wounds punched into his brother’s torso, the smear of already freezing blood on the furs, smelling bitter urine and pungent faeces.

  ‘Theradas and Midik are coming,’ Fear said. ‘The Jheck have fled.’ He then set off, round towards the back of the rise.

  But that makes no sense. They had us. There were too many of them. None of this makes sense. Rhulad. He’s dead. Our brother is dead.

  A short time later, Fear returned, crouched down beside him, and tenderly reached out…to take the sword. Trull watched Fear’s hands close about Rhulad’s where they still clutched the leather-wrapped grip. Watched, as Fear sought to pry those dead fingers loose.

  And could not.

  Trull studied that fell weapon. The blade was indeed mottled, seemingly forged of polished iron and black shards of some harder, glassier material, the surface of both cracked and uneven. Splashes of blood were freezing black here and there, like a fast-spreading rot.

  Fear sought to wrench the sword free.

  But Rhulad would not release it.

  ‘Hannan Mosag warned us,’ Binadas said, ‘did he not? Do not allow your flesh to touch the gift.’

  ‘But he’s dead,’ Trull whispered.

  Dusk was swiftly closing round them, the chill in the air deepening.

  Theradas and Midik arrived. Both were wounded, but neither seriously so. They were silent as they stared down on Rhulad.

  Fear leaned back, having reached some sort of decision. He was silent a moment longer, slowly pulling on his gauntlets. Then he straightened. ‘Carry him—sword and all—down to the sleds. We will wrap body and blade together. Releasing the gift from our brother’s hands is for Hannan Mosag to manage, now.’

  No-one else spoke.

  Fear studied each of them in turn, then said, ‘We travel through this night. I want us out of these wastes as soon as possible.’ He looked down on Rhulad once more. ‘Our brother is blooded. He died a warrior of the Hiroth. His shall be a hero’s funeral, one that all the Hiroth shall remember.’

  In the wake of numbness came…other things. Questions. But what was the point of those? Any answers that could be found were no better than suppositions, born of uncertainties vulnerable to countless poisons—that host of doubts even now besieging Trull’s thoughts. Where had Rhulad disappeared to? What had he sought to achieve by charging into that knot of Jheck savages? And he had well understood the prohibition against taking up the gift, yet he had done so none the less.

  So much of what happened seemed…senseless.

  Even in his final act of extremity, Rhulad answers not the loss of trust under which he laboured. No clean gesture, this messy end. Fear called him a hero, but Trull suspected the motivation behind that claim. A son of Tomad Sengar had failed in his duties on night watch. And now was dead, the sacrifice itself marred with incomprehensible intentions.

  The questions led Trull nowhere, and faded to a new wave, one that sickened him, clenching at his gut with spasms of anguish. There had been bravery in that last act. If nothing else. Surprising bravery, when Trull had, of his brother Rhulad, begun to suspect…otherwise. I doubted him. In every way, I doubted him.

  Into his heart whispered…guilt, a ghost and a ghost’s voice, growing monstrous with taloned hands tightening, ever tightening, until his soul began to scream. A piercing cry only Trull could hear, yet a sound that threatened to drive him mad.

  And through it all, a more pervasive sense, a hollowness deep within him. The loss of a brother. The face that would never again smile, the voice that Trull would never again hear. There seemed no end to the layers of loss settling dire and heavy upon him.

  He helped Fear wrap Rhulad and the sword in a waxed canvas groundsheet, hearing Midik’s weeping as if from a great distance, listening to Binadas talk as he bound wounds and drew upon Emurlahn to quicken healing. As the stiff folds closed over Rhulad’s face, Trull’s breath caught in a ragged gasp, and he flinched back as Fear tightened the covering with leather straps.

  ‘It is done,’ Fear murmured. ‘Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal’s shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched behind one now stretches before him.’

  ‘You called him a hero.’

  ‘I did, and it was not an empty claim. He went to the other side of the rise, which is why we did not see him, and discovered Jheck seeking the sword by subterfuge.’

  Trull looked up.

  ‘I needed ans
wers of my own, brother. He killed two on that side of the hill, yet lost his weapon doing so. Others were coming, I imagine, and so Rhulad must have concluded he had no choice. The Jheck wanted the sword. They would have to kill him to get it. Trull, it is done. He died, blooded and brave. I myself came upon the corpses beyond the rise, before I came back to you and Binadas.’

  All my doubts…the poisons of suspicion, in all their foul flavours—Daughter Dusk take me—but I have drunk deep.

  ‘Trull, we need you and your skills with that spear in our wake,’ Fear said. ‘Both Binadas and Rhulad here will have to be pulled on the sleds, and for this Theradas and I will be needed. Midik takes point.’

  Trull blinked confusedly. ‘Binadas cannot walk?’

  ‘His hip is broken, and he has not the strength left to heal it.’

  Trull straightened. ‘Do you think they will pursue?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fear said.

  Their flight began. Darkness swept down upon them, and a wind began blowing, lifting high the fine-grained snow until the sky itself was grey-white and lowering. The temperature dropped still further, as if with vicious intent, until even the furs they wore began to fail them.

  Favouring his wounded leg, Trull jogged twenty paces behind the sleds—they were barely visible through the wind-whipped snow. The blood-frosted spear was in his grip, a detail he confirmed every few moments since his fingers had gone numb, but this did little to encourage him. The enemy might well be all around him, just beyond the range of his vision, padding through the darkness, only moments from rushing in.

  He would have no time to react, and whatever shout of warning he managed would be torn away by the wind, and his companions would hear nothing. Nor would they return for his body. The gift must be delivered.

  Trull ran on, constantly scanning to either side, occasionally twisting round to look behind, seeing nothing but faint white. The rhythmic stab of pain in his knee cut through a growing, deadly lassitude, the seep of exhaustion slowing his shivering beneath the furs, dragging at his limbs.

  Dawn’s arrival was announced by a dull, reluctant surrender of the pervasive gloom—there was no break in the blizzard’s onslaught, no rise in temperature. Trull had given up his vigil. He simply ran on, one foot in front of the other, his ice-clad moccasins the entire extent of his vision. His hands had grown strangely warm beneath the gauntlets, a remote warmth, pooled somewhere beyond his wrists. Something about that vaguely disturbed him.

  Hunger had faded, as had the pain in his knee.

  A tingling unease, and Trull looked up.

  The sleds were nowhere in sight. He gasped bitter air, slowed his steps, blinking in an effort to see through the ice crystals on his lashes. The muted daylight was fading. He had run through the day, mindless as a millstone, and another night was fast approaching. And he was lost.

  Trull dropped the spear. He cried out in pain as he wheeled his arms, seeking to pump more blood into his cold, stiff muscles. He drew his fingers into fists within the gauntlets, and was horrified by nearly failing at so simple a task. The warmth grew warmer, then hot, then searing as if his fingers were on fire. He fought through the agony, pounding his fists on his thighs, flexing against the waves of burning pain.

  He was surrounded in white, as if the physical world had been scrubbed away, eroded into oblivion by the snow and wind. Terror whispered into his mind, for he sensed that he was not alone.

  Trull retrieved the spear. He studied the blowing snow on all sides. One direction seemed slightly darker than any other—the east—and he determined that he had been running due west. Following the unseen sun. And now, he needed to turn southerly.

  Until his pursuers tired of their game.

  He set out.

  A hundred paces, and he glanced behind him, to see two wolves emerge from the blowing snow. Trull halted and spun round. The beasts vanished once more.

  Heart thundering, Trull drew out his longsword and jammed it point-first into the hard-packed snow. Then he strode six paces back along his trail and readied his spear.

  They came again, this time at a charge.

  He had time to plant his spear and drop to one knee before the first beast was upon him. The spear shaft bowed as the iron point slammed dead-centre into the wolf’s sternum. Bone and Blackwood shattered simultaneously, then it was as if a boulder hammered into Trull, throwing him back in the air. He landed on his left shoulder, to skid and roll in a spray of snow. As he tumbled, he caught sight of his left forearm, blood whipping out from the black splinters jutting from it. Then he came to a stop, up against the longsword.

  Trull tugged it loose and half rose as he turned about.

  A mass of white fur, black-gummed jaws stretched wide.

  Bellowing, Trull slashed horizontally with the sword, falling in the wake of the desperate swing.

  Iron edge sheared through bones, one set, then another.

  The wolf fell onto him, its forelimbs severed halfway down and spraying blood.

  Teeth closed down on the blade of his sword in a snapping frenzy.

  Trull kicked himself clear, tearing his sword free of the wolf’s jaws. Tumbling blood, a mass of tongue slapping onto the crusty ice in front of his face, the muscle twitching like a thing still alive. He scrambled into a crouch, then lunged towards the thrashing beast. Thrusting the sword-point into its neck.

  The wolf coughed, kicking as if seeking to escape, then slumped motionless on the red snow.

  Trull reeled back. He saw the first beast, lying where the spear had stolen its life before breaking. Beyond it stood three Jheck hunters—who melted back into the whiteness.

  Blood was streaming down Trull’s left forearm, gathering in his gauntlet. He lifted the arm and tucked it close against his stomach. Pulling the splinters would have to wait. Gasping, he set his sword down and worked his left forearm through his spear harness. Then, retrieving the sword, he set out once more.

  Oblivion on all sides. In which nightmares could flower, sudden and unimpeded, rushing upon him, as fast as his terror-filled mind could conjure them into being, one after another, the succession endless, until death took him—until the whiteness slipped behind his eyes.

  He stumbled on, wondering if the fight had actually occurred, unwilling to look down to confirm the wounds on his arm—fearing that he would see nothing. He could not have killed two wolves. He could not have simply chosen to face in one direction and not another, to find himself meeting that charge head-on. He could not have thrust his sword into the ground the precise number of paces behind him, as if knowing how far he would be thrown by the impact. No, he had conjured the entire battle from his own imagination. No other explanation made sense.

  And so he looked down.

  A mass of splinters rising like crooked spines from his forearm. A blackening sword in his right hand, tufts of white fur caught in the clotted blood near the hilt. His spear was gone.

  I am fevered. The will of my thoughts has seeped out from my eyes, twisting the truth of all that I see. Even the ache in my shoulder is but an illusion.

  A rush of footsteps behind him.

  With a roar, Trull whipped around, sword hissing.

  Blade chopping into the side of a savage’s head, just above the ear. Bone buckling, blood spurting from eye and ear on that side. Figure toppling.

  Another, darting in low from his right. Trull leapt back, stop-thrusting. He watched, the motion seeming appallingly slow, as the Jheck turned his stabbing spear to parry. Watched as the sword dipped under the block, then extended once more, to slide point-first beneath the man’s left collarbone.

  A third attacker on his left, slashing a spear-point at Trull’s eyes. He leaned back, then spun full circle, pivoting on his right foot, and brought his sword’s edge smoothly across the savage’s throat. A red flood down the Jheck’s chest.

  Trull completed his spin and resumed his jog, the snow stinging his eyes.

  Nothing but nightmares.

  He was lying m
otionless, the snow slowly covering him, whilst his mind ran on and on, fleeing this lie, this empty world that was not empty, this thick whiteness that exploded into motion and colour again and again.

  Attackers, appearing out of the darkness and blowing snow. Moments of frenzied fighting, sparks and the hiss of iron and the bite of wood and stone. A succession of ambushes that seemed without end, convincing Trull that he was indeed within a nightmare, ever folding in on itself. Each time, the Jheck appeared in threes, never more, and the Hiroth warrior began to believe that they were the same three, dying only to rise once again—and so it would continue, until they finally succeeded, until they killed him.

  Yet he fought on, leaving blood and bodies in his wake.

  Running, snow crunching underfoot.

  And then the wind fell off, sudden like a spent breath.

  Patches of dark ground ahead. An unseen barrier burst across, the lurid glare of a setting sun to his right, the languid flow of cool, damp air, the smell of mud.

  And shouts. Figures off to his left, half a thousand paces distant. Brothers of the hearth, the dead welcoming his arrival.

  Gladness welling in his heart, Trull staggered towards them. He was not to be a ghost wandering for ever alone, then. There would be kin at his side. Fear, and Binadas. And Rhulad.

  Midik Buhn, and Theradas, rushing towards him.

  Brothers, all of them. My brothers—

  The sun’s light wavered, rippled like water, then darkness rose up in a devouring flood.

  The sleds were off to one side, their runners buried in mud. On one was a wrapped figure, around which jagged slabs of ice had been packed and strapped in place. Binadas was propped up on the other sled, his eyes closed, his face deeply lined with pain.

  Trull slowly sat up, feeling light-headed and strangely awkward. Furs tumbled from him as he clambered to his feet and stood, wavering, and dazedly looked around. To the west shimmered a lake, flat grey beneath the overcast sky. The faint wind was warm and humid.

  A fire had been lit, and over it was spit a scrawny hare, tended to by Midik Buhn. Off to one side stood Fear and Theradas, facing the distant ice-fields to the east as they spoke in quiet tones.