The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  ‘I will take them both. And pay you nothing.’

  Frowning, the Merude said, ‘You were careless in losing them. We were diligent in recapturing them. Accordingly, we expect compensation for our efforts, just as you should expect a certain cost for your carelessness.’

  ‘Unchain them,’ the stranger said.

  ‘No. What tribe are you?’ The eyes, still fixed unwavering upon his own, looked profoundly…dead. ‘What has happened to your skin?’ As dead as the Emperor’s. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Unchain them now.’

  The Merude shook his head, then he laughed – a little weakly – and waved his comrades forward as he began drawing his cutlass.

  Disbelief at the absurdity of the challenge slowed his effort. The weapon was halfway out of its scabbard when one of the stranger’s longswords flashed clear of its sheath and opened the Edur’s throat.

  Shouting in rage, the other five warriors drew their blades and rushed forward, while the ten Letherii soldiers quickly followed suit.

  The stranger watched the leader crumple to the ground, blood spurting wild into the river mist descending onto the road. Then he unsheathed his other longsword and stepped to meet the five Edur. A clash of iron, and all at once the two Letherii weapons in the stranger’s hands were singing, a rising timbre with every blow they absorbed.

  Two Edur stumbled back at the same time, both mortally wounded, one in the chest, the other with a third of his skull sliced away. This latter one turned away as the fighting continued, reaching down to collect the fragment of scalp and bone, then walked drunkenly back along the road.

  Another Edur fell, his left leg cut out from beneath him. The remaining two quickly backed away, yelling at the Letherii who were now hesitating three paces behind the fight.

  The stranger pressed forward. He parried a thrust from the Edur on the right with the longsword in his left hand – sliding the blade under then over, drawing it leftward before a twist of his wrist tore the weapon from the attacker’s hand; then a straight-arm thrust of his own buried his point in the Edur’s throat. At the same time he reached over with the longsword in his right hand, feinting high. The last Edur leaned back to avoid that probe, attempting a slash aimed at clipping the stranger’s wrist. But the longsword then deftly dipped, batting the cutlass away, even as the point drove up into the warrior’s right eye socket, breaking the delicate orbital bones on its way into the forebrain.

  Advancing between the two falling Edur, the stranger cut down the nearest two Letherii – at which point the remaining eight broke and ran, past the wagons – where the drivers were themselves scrambling in panicked abandonment – and then alongside the row of staring prisoners. Running, flinging weapons away, down the road.

  As one Letherii in particular moved opposite one of the slaves, a leg kicked out, tripping the man, and it seemed the chain-line writhed then, as the ambushing slave leapt atop the hapless Letherii, loose chain wrapping round the neck, before the slave pulled it taut. Legs kicked, arms thrashed and hands clawed, but the slave would not relent, and eventually the guard’s struggles ceased.

  Silchas Ruin, the swords keening in his hands, walked up to where Udinaas continued strangling the corpse. ‘You can stop now,’ the albino Tiste Andii said.

  ‘I can,’ Udinaas said through clenched teeth, ‘but I won’t. This bastard was the worst of them. The worst.’

  ‘His soul even now drowns in the mist,’ Silchas Ruin said, turning as two figures emerged from the brush lining the ditch on the south side of the road.

  ‘Keep choking him,’ said Kettle, from where she was chained farther down the line. ‘He hurt me, that one.’

  ‘I know,’ Udinaas said in a grating voice. ‘I know.’

  Silchas Ruin approached Kettle. ‘Hurt you. How?’

  ‘The usual way,’ she replied. ‘With the thing between his legs.’

  ‘And the other Letherii?’

  The girl shook her head. ‘They just watched. Laughing, always laughing.’

  Silchas Ruin turned as Seren Pedac arrived.

  Seren was chilled by the look in the Tiste Andii’s uncanny eyes as Silchas Ruin said, ‘I will pursue the ones who flee, Acquitor. And rejoin you all before day’s end.’

  She looked away, her gaze catching a momentary glimpse of Fear Sengar, standing over the corpses of the Merude Tiste Edur, then quickly on, to the rock-littered plain to the south – where still wandered the Tiste Edur who’d lost a third of his skull. But that sight as well proved too poignant. ‘Very well,’ she said, now squinting at the wagons and the horses standing in their yokes. ‘We will continue on this road.’

  Udinaas had finally expended his rage on the Letherii body beneath him, and he rose to face her. ‘Seren Pedac, what of the rest of these slaves? We must free them all.’

  She frowned. Exhaustion was making thinking difficult. Months and months of hiding, fleeing, eluding both Edur and Letherii; of finding their efforts to head eastward blocked again and again, forcing them ever northward, and the endless terror that lived within her, had driven all acuity from her thoughts. Free them. Yes. But then…

  ‘Just more rumours,’ Udinaas said, as if reading her mind, as if finding her thoughts before she did. ‘There’s plenty of those, confusing our hunters. Listen, Seren, they already know where we are, more or less. And these slaves – they’ll do whatever they can to avoid recapture. We need not worry overmuch about them.’

  She raised her brows. ‘You vouch for your fellow Indebted, Udinaas? All of whom will turn away from a chance to buy their way clear with vital information, yes?’

  ‘The only alternative, then,’ he said, eyeing her, ‘is to kill them all.’

  The ones listening, the ones not yet beaten down into mindless automatons, suddenly raised their voices in proclamations and promises, reaching out towards Seren, chains rattling. The others looked up in fear, like myrid catching scent of a wolf they could not see. Some cried out, cowering in the stony mud of the road.

  ‘The first Edur he killed,’ said Udinaas, ‘has the keys.’

  Silchas Ruin had walked down the road. Barely visible in the mist, the Tiste Andii veered into something huge, winged, then took to the air. Seren glanced over at the row of slaves – none had seen that, she was relieved to note. ‘Very well,’ she said in answer to Udinaas, and she walked up to where Fear Sengar still stood near the dead Edur.

  ‘I must take the keys,’ she said, crouching beside the first fallen Edur.

  ‘Do not touch him,’ Fear said.

  She looked up at him. ‘The keys – the chains—’

  ‘I will find them,’ he said.

  Nodding, she straightened, then stepped back. Watched as he spoke a silent prayer, then settled onto his knees beside the body. He found the keys in a leather pouch tied to the warrior’s belt, a pouch that also contained a handful of polished stones. Fear took the keys in his left hand and held the stones in the palm of his right. ‘These,’ he said, ‘are from the Merude shore. Likely he collected them when but a child.’

  ‘Children grow up,’ Seren said. ‘Even straight trees spawn crooked branches.’

  ‘And what was flawed in this warrior?’ Fear demanded, glaring up at her. ‘He followed my brother, as did every other warrior of the tribes.’

  ‘Some eventually turned away, Fear.’ Like you.

  ‘What I have turned away from lies in the shadow of what I am now turned towards, Acquitor. Does this challenge my loyalty towards the Tiste Edur? My own kind? No. That is something all of you forget, conveniently so, again and again. Understand me, Acquitor. I will hide if I must, but I will not kill my own people. We had the coin, we could have bought their freedom—’

  ‘Not Udinaas.’

  He bared his teeth, said nothing.

  Yes, Udinaas, the one man you dream of killing. If not for Silchas Ruin…‘Fear Sengar,’ she said. ‘You have chosen to travel with us, and there can be no doubt – none at all – that Silchas Ruin command
s this meagre party. Dislike his methods if you must, but he alone will see you through. You know this.’

  The Hiroth warrior looked away, back down the road, blinking the water from his eyes. ‘And with each step, the cost of my quest becomes greater – an indebtedness you should well understand, Acquitor. The Letherii way of living, the burdens you can never escape. Nor purchase your way clear.’

  She reached out for the keys.

  He set them into her hand, unwilling to meet her eyes.

  We’re no different from those slaves. She hefted the weight of the jangling iron in her hand. Chained together. Yet…who holds the means of our release?

  ‘Where has he gone?’ Fear asked.

  ‘To hunt down the Letherii. I trust you do not object to that.’

  ‘No, but you should, Acquitor.’

  I suppose I should at that. She set off to where waited the slaves.

  A prisoner near Udinaas had crawled close to him, and Seren heard his whispered question: ‘That tall slayer – was that the White Crow? He was, wasn’t he? I have heard—’

  ‘You have heard nothing,’ Udinaas said, raising his arms as Seren approached. ‘The three-edged one,’ he said to her. ‘Yes, that one. Errant take us, you took your time.’

  She worked the key until the first shackle clicked open. ‘You two were supposed to be stealing from a farm – not getting rounded up by slave-trackers.’

  ‘Trackers camped on the damned grounds – no-one was smiling on us that night.’

  She opened the other shackle and Udinaas stepped out from the line, rubbing at the red weals round his wrists. Seren said, ‘Fear sought to dissuade Silchas – you know, if those two are any indication, it’s no wonder the Edur and the Andii fought ten thousand wars.’

  Udinaas grunted as the two made their way to where stood Kettle. ‘Fear resents his loss of command,’ he said. ‘That it is to a Tiste Andii just makes it worse. He’s still not convinced the betrayal was the other way round all those centuries back; that it was Scabandari who first drew the knife.’

  Seren Pedac said nothing. As she moved in front of Kettle she looked down at the girl’s dirt-smeared face, the ancient eyes slowly lifting to meet her own.

  Kettle smiled. ‘I missed you.’

  ‘How badly were you used?’ Seren asked as she removed the large iron shackles.

  ‘I can walk. And the bleeding’s stopped. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

  ‘Probably.’ But this talk of rape was unwelcome – Seren had her own memories haunting her every waking moment. ‘There will be scars, Kettle.’

  ‘Being alive is hard. I’m always hungry, and my feet hurt.’

  I hate children with secrets – especially ones with secrets they’re not even aware of. Find the right questions; there’s no other way of doing this. ‘What else bothers you about being among the living again, Kettle?’ And…how? Why?

  ‘Feeling small.’

  Seren’s right arm was plucked by a slave, an old man who reached out for the keys with pathetic hope in his eyes. She handed them to him. ‘Free the others,’ she said. He nodded vigorously, scrabbling at his shackles. ‘Now,’ Seren said to Kettle, ‘that’s a feeling we all must accept. Too much of the world defies our efforts to conform to what would please us. To live is to know dissatisfaction and frustration.’

  ‘I still want to tear out throats, Seren. Is that bad? I think it must be.’

  At Kettle’s words, the old man shrank away, redoubling his clumsy attempts at releasing himself. Behind him a woman cursed with impatience.

  Udinaas had climbed onto the bed of the lead wagon and was busy looting it for whatever they might need. Kettle scrambled to join him.

  ‘We need to move out of this mist,’ Seren muttered. ‘I’m soaked through.’ She walked towards the wagon. ‘Hurry up with that, you two. If more company finds us here, we could be in trouble.’ Especially now that Silchas Ruin is gone. The Tiste Andii had been the singular reason for their survival thus far. When hiding and evading the searchers failed, his two swords found voice, the eerie song of obliteration. The White Crow.

  It had been a week since they last caught sight of Edur and Letherii who were clearly hunters. Seeking the traitor, Fear Sengar. Seeking the betrayer, Udinaas. Yet Seren Pedac was bemused – there should have been entire armies chasing them. While the pursuit was persistent, it was dogged rather than ferocious in its execution. Silchas had mentioned, once, in passing, that the Emperor’s K’risnan were working ritual sorceries, the kind that sought to lure and trap. And that snares awaited them to the east, and round Letheras itself. She could understand those to the east, for it was the wild lands beyond the empire that had been their destination all along, where Fear – for some reason he did not care to explain – believed he would find what he sought; a belief that Silchas Ruin did not refute. But to surround the capital city itself baffled Seren. As if Rhulad is frightened of his brother.

  Udinaas leapt down from the lead wagon and made his way to the second one. ‘I found coin,’ he said. ‘Lots. We should take these horses, too – we can sell them once we’re down the other side of the pass.’

  ‘There is a fort at the pass,’ Seren said. ‘It may be un-garrisoned, but there’s no guarantee of that, Udinaas. If we arrive with horses – and they recognize them…’

  ‘We go round that fort,’ he replied. ‘At night. Unseen.’

  She frowned, wiped water from her eyes. ‘Easier done without horses. Besides, these beasts are old, too broken – they won’t earn us much, especially in Bluerose. And when Wyval returns they’ll probably die of terror.’

  ‘Wyval’s not coming back,’ Udinaas said, turning away, his voice grating. ‘Wyval’s gone, and that’s that.’

  She knew she should not doubt him. The dragon-spawn’s spirit had dwelt within him, after all. Yet there was no obvious explanation for the winged beast’s sudden disappearance, at least none that Udinaas would share. Wyval had been gone for over a month.

  Udinaas swore from where he crouched atop the bed of the wagon. ‘Nothing here but weapons.’

  ‘Weapons?’

  ‘Swords, shields and armour.’

  ‘Letherii?’

  ‘Yes. Middling quality.’

  ‘What were these slavers doing with a wagon load of weapons?’

  Shrugging, he climbed back down, hurried past her and began unhitching the horses. ‘These beasts would’ve had a hard time on the ascent.’

  ‘Silchas Ruin is coming back,’ Kettle said, pointing down the road.

  ‘That was fast.’

  Udinaas laughed harshly, then said, ‘The fools should have scattered, made him hunt each one down separately. Instead, they probably regrouped, like the stupid good soldiers they were.’

  From near the front wagon, Fear Sengar spoke. ‘Your blood is very thin, Udinaas, isn’t it?’

  ‘Like water,’ the ex-slave replied.

  For Errant’s sake, Fear, he did not choose to abandon your brother. You know that. Nor is he responsible for Rhulad’s madness. So how much of your hatred for Udinaas comes from guilt? Who truly is to blame for Rhulad? For the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths?

  The white-skinned Tiste Andii strode from the mists, an apparition, his black cloak glistening like snakeskin. Swords sheathed once more, muting their cries – iron voices reluctant to fade, they would persist for days, now.

  How she hated that sound.

  Tanal Yathvanar stood looking down at the naked woman on his bed. The questioners had worked hard on her, seeking the answers they wanted. She was badly broken, her skin cut and burned, her joints swollen and mottled with bruises. She had been barely conscious when he’d used her last night. This was easier than whores, and cost him nothing besides. He wasn’t much interested in beating his women, just in seeing them beaten. He understood his desire was perversion, but this organization – the Patriotists – was the perfect haven for people like him. Power and immunity, a most deadly combination. He suspected that Ka
ros Invictad was well aware of Tanal’s nightly escapades, and held that knowledge like a sheathed knife.

  It’s not as if I’ve killed her. It’s not as if she’ll even remember this. She’s destined for the Drownings in any case – what matter if I take some pleasure first? Soldiers do the same. He had dreamed of being a soldier once, years ago, when in his youth he had held to misguided, romantic notions of heroism and unconstrained freedom, as if the first justified the second. There had been many noble killers in the history of Lether. Gerun Eberict had been such a man. He’d murdered thousands – thieves, thugs and wastrels, the depraved and the destitute. He had cleansed the streets of Letheras, and who had not indulged in the rewards? Fewer beggars, fewer pickpockets, fewer homeless and all the other decrepit failures of the modern age. Tanal admired Gerun Eberict – he had been a great man. Murdered by a thug, his skull crushed to pulp – a tragic loss, senseless and cruel.

  One day we shall find that killer.

  He turned away from the unconscious woman, adjusted his light tunic so that the shoulder seams were even and straight, then closed the clasps of his weapon belt. One of the Invigilator’s requirements for all officers of the Patriotists: belt, dagger and shortsword. Tanal liked the weight of them, the authority implicit in the privilege of wearing arms where all other Letherii – barring soldiers – were forbidden by proclamation of the Emperor.

  As if we might rebel. The damned fool thinks he won that war. They all do. Dimwitted barbarians.

  Tanal Yathvanar walked to the door, stepped out into the corridor, and made his way towards the Invigilator’s office. The second bell after midday sounded a moment before he knocked on the door. A murmured invitation bade him enter.

  He found Rautos Hivanar, Master of the Liberty Consign, already seated opposite Karos Invictad. The large man seemed to fill half the room, and Tanal noted that the Invigilator had pushed his own chair as far back as possible, so that it was tilted against the sill of the window. In this space on his side of the desk, Karos attempted a posture of affable comfort.