The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  He blinked up at her, wide-eyed as an owl.

  ‘Wha’s your probbem, Urb? I ain’t as ugly as you, am I?’

  ‘Urb ain’t ugly,’ Reem said with an incredulous laugh. ‘Masan couldn’t think straight around him! Probably why she let herself get shifted over to Balm’s squad.’

  Hellian grunted, then said, ‘Be quiet, Reem. You’re a corporal. This is sergeant business.’

  ‘You want a roll with Urb, Sergeant,’ Reem said. ‘Got nothing to do with you two being sergeants and everything t’do with Urb looking like some goddamned god and you drunk enough to get hungry for the sweats and grunts.’

  ‘Still ain’t your business.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we gotta listen to those grunts. Like Scant said, if Masan was around we could all of us dream those dreams and maybe even try, hoping she’d be so frustrated trying to get anywhere with Urb she just might—’

  ‘Since when you find that runaway mouth of yours, Reem?’ Balgrid demanded. ‘You was better being silent and mysterious. So now you lose a couple fingers and what happens?’

  ‘Quiet allaya,’ Hellian said. ‘You want another patrol coming down on us and us not ready for ’em this time? Now, the rest of you, not countin’ Urb here, check your gear and get your trophies and all that and if you wanna listen then just don’t make too many groanin’ noises. Of envy and the like.’

  ‘We won’t be groaning outa envy, Hellian. More like—’

  ‘Silent and mysterious, damn you, Reem!’

  ‘I feel like talking, Balgrid, and you can’t stop me—’

  ‘But I can, and you won’t like it at all.’

  ‘Damned necromancer.’

  ‘Just the other side of Denul, Reem, like I keep telling you. Denul’s giving, Hood’s taking away.’

  Hellian closed in on Urb, who suddenly looked terrified. ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘I ain’t gonna cut anything off. Not anything of yours, anyway. But if I get clobbered with terrible rejection here…’

  ‘Nice bed of moss over here,’ Scant said, straightening and moving away with a gesture in his wake.

  Hellian reached down and tugged Urb to his feet.

  Balgrid was suddenly beside him. ‘Listen, Sergeant—’

  She dragged Urb past the mage.

  ‘No, Sergeant! Those ones tracking us – I think they’ve found us!’

  All at once weapons were drawn, figures scattering to defensive positions – a rough circle facing outward with Hellian and Urb in the centre.

  ‘Balgrid,’ she hissed. ‘You coulda said—’

  Horse hoofs, the heavy breath of an animal, then a voice called out, low, in Malazan: ‘Captain Faradan Sort and Beak. We’re coming in so put your damned sharpers away.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just great,’ Hellian sighed. ‘Ease down, everyone, it’s that scary captain.’

  Marines all right. Beak didn’t like the look of them. Mean, hungry, scowling now that the captain had found them. And there was a dead one, too.

  Faradan Sort guided her horse into their midst, then dismounted. Beak remained where he was for the moment, not far from where two soldiers stood, only now sheathing their swords. He could see the necromancer, the man’s aura white and ghostly. Death was everywhere here, the still air heavy with last breaths, and he could feel this assault of loss like a tight fist in his chest.

  It was always this way where people died. He should never have become a soldier.

  ‘Hellian, Urb, we need to talk. In private.’ Cool and hard, the captain’s voice. ‘Beak?’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘Join us.’

  Oh no. But he rode forward and then slipped down from the saddle. Too much attention on him all at once, and he ducked as he made his way to the captain’s side.

  Faradan Sort in the lead, the group set off into the wood.

  ‘We ain’t done nothin’ wrong,’ Sergeant Hellian said as soon as they halted twenty or so paces from the others. She seemed to be weaving back and forth like a flat-headed snake moments from spitting venom.

  ‘You were supposed to pace yourselves, not get too far ahead of the other squads. At any moment now, Sergeant, we won’t be running onto patrols of twenty, but two hundred. Then two thousand.’

  ‘Tha’s not the probbem,’ Hellian said – an accent Beak had never heard before. ‘The probbem is, Cap’in, the Letherii are fightin’ alongside them Edur—’

  ‘Have you attempted to make contact with those Letherii?’

  ‘We have,’ Urb said. ‘It got messy.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no sign, Captain, that these people want to be liberated.’

  ‘Like Urb said,’ Hellian added, nodding vigorously.

  The captain looked away. ‘The other squads have said much the same.’

  ‘Maybe we can convince them or something,’ Urb said.

  Hellian leaned against a tree. ‘Seems t’me, Cap’in, we got two things we can do and ony two. We can retreat back t’the coast. Build ten thousand rafts and paddle away ’s fast as we can. Or we go on. Fast, vicious mean. And iffin they come at us two thousand at once, then we run an’ hide like we was trained t’do. Fast and vicious mean, Cap’in, or a long paddle.’

  ‘There is only one thing worse than arguing with a drunk,’ Faradan Sort said, ‘and that’s arguing with a drunk who’s right.’

  Hellian beamed a big smile.

  She was drunk? She was drunk. A drunk sergeant, only, as the captain had just said, no fool either.

  Faradan Sort continued, ‘Do you have enough horses for your squads?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Urb replied. ‘More than enough.’

  ‘I still want you to slow down, for a few days at least. I intend to contact the other squads and get them to start doing what you’re doing, but that will take some time—’

  ‘Captain,’ Urb said. ‘I got a feeling they’re learning already. There’s lots more patrols now and they’re getting bigger and a lot more wary. We’ve been expecting to walk into an ambush at any time, and that’s what’s got us worried. Next time you ride to find us you might find a pile of corpses. Malazan corpses. We ain’t got the munitions to carry us all the way – no-one has – so it’s going to start getting a lot harder, sir.’

  ‘I know, Sergeant. You lost one in that fight, didn’t you?’

  ‘Hanno.’

  ‘Got careless,’ Hellian said.

  Urb frowned, then nodded. ‘Aye, that’s true.’

  ‘Then let us hope that one hard lesson is enough,’ the captain said.

  ‘Expect it is,’ Urb confirmed.

  Faradan Sort faced Beak. ‘Tell them about the Holds, Beak.’

  He flinched, then sighed and said, ‘Letherii mages – they might be able to find us by the horses, by smelling them out, I mean.’

  ‘Balgrid’s covering our trail,’ Urb said. ‘Are you saying it won’t work?’

  ‘Might be,’ Beak said. ‘Necromancy’s one thing they can’t figure. Not Letherii. Not Tiste Edur. But there’s a Beast Hold, you see.’

  Hellian withdrew a flask and drank down a mouthful, then said, ‘We need to know for certain. Next time, Urb, we get us one of them Letherii mages alive. We ask some questions, and in between the screams we get answers.’

  Beak shivered. Not just drunk but bloodthirsty, too.

  ‘Be careful,’ the captain said. ‘That could go sour very quickly.’

  ‘We know all about careful, sir,’ Hellian said with a bleary smile.

  Faradan Sort studied the sergeant the way she sometimes studied Beak himself, then she said, ‘We’re done. Slow down some, and watch out for small patrols – they might be bait.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘We’re in this, now. Understand?’

  ‘No rafts?’

  ‘No rafts, Hellian.’

  ‘Good. If’n I never see another sea I’m going to die happy.’

  She would, too, Beak knew. Die happy. She had that going for her.

  ‘Back to your squads,’ the captain said. ‘Set your nervous sol
diers at ease.’

  ‘It’s not the smell,’ Beak said.

  The others turned inquiringly.

  ‘That’s not what’s making them nervous, I mean,’ Beak explained. ‘The death smell – they’re carrying all that with them, right? So they’re used to it now. They’re only nervous because they’ve been sitting around too long. In one place. That’s all.’

  ‘Then let us not waste any more time,’ Faradan Sort said.

  Good idea. That was why she was a captain, of course. Smart enough to make her ways of thinking a mystery to him – but that was one mystery he was happy enough with. Maybe the only one.

  They flung themselves down at the forest’s edge. Edge, aye – too many damned edges. Beyond was a patchwork of farmland and hedgerows. Two small farms were visible, although no lantern-or candle-light showed through the tiny, shuttered windows. Heart pounding painfully in his chest, Fiddler rolled onto his side to see how many had made it. A chorus of harsh breaths from the scatter of bodies in the gloom to either side of the sergeant. All there. Thanks to Corabb and the desert warrior’s impossible luck.

  The ambush had been a clever one, he admitted. Should have taken them all down. Instead, half a league back, in a small grassy glade, there was the carcass of a deer – a deer that Corabb had inadvertently flushed out – with about twenty arrows in it. Cleverly planned, poorly executed.

  The Malazans had quickly turned it. Sharpers cracking in the night, crossbows thudding, the flit of quarrels and the punch of impact. Shrieks of agony. A rush from Gesler’s heavies had broken one side of the ambush—

  And then the sorcery had churned awake, something raw and terrible, devouring trees like acid. Grey tongues of chaotic fire, heaving into a kind of standing wave. Charging forward, engulfing Sands – his scream had been mercifully short. Fiddler, not ten paces away from where Sands had vanished, saw the Letherii mage, who seemed to be screaming with his own pain, even as the wave hurled forward. Bellowing, he’d swung his crossbow round, felt the kick in his hands as he loosed the heavy quarrel.

  The cusser had struck a bole just above and behind the mage’s head. The explosion flattened nearby trees, shredded a score of Letherii soldiers. Snuffed the sorcery out in an instant. As more trees toppled, branches thrashing down, the Malazans had pulled back, fast, and then they ran.

  Movement from Fiddler’s left and a moment later Gesler dragged himself up alongside. ‘Hood’s damned us all, Fid. We’re running out of forest – how’s Cuttle?’

  ‘Arrow’s deep,’ Fiddler replied, ‘but not a bleeder. We can dig it out when we get a chance.’

  ‘Think they’re tracking us?’

  Fiddler shook his head. He had no idea. If there were enough of them left. He twisted round. ‘Bottle,’ he hissed, ‘over here.’

  The young mage crawled close.

  ‘Can you reach back?’ Fiddler asked. ‘Find out if they’re after us?’

  ‘Already did, Sergeant. Used every damned creature in our wake.’

  ‘And?’ Gesler wanted to know.

  ‘That cusser did most of them, Sergeant. But the noise brought others. At least a dozen Tiste Edur and maybe a few hundred Letherii. Are they tracking us now? Aye, but still a way behind – they’ve learned to be cautious, I guess.’

  ‘We’re losing the dark,’ Gesler said. ‘We need a place to hide, Fid – only that’s probably not going to work this time, is it? They’re not going to rest.’

  ‘Can we lose them?’ Fiddler asked Bottle.

  ‘I’m pretty tired, Sergeant—’

  ‘Never mind. You’ve done enough. What do you think, Gesler? Time to get messy?’

  ‘And use up our few cussers?’

  ‘Don’t see much choice, to be honest. Of course, I always hold one back. Same for Cuttle.’

  Gesler nodded. ‘We had ours distributed – good thing, too, the way Sands went up. Still, he had munitions on him, yet they didn’t ignite—’

  ‘Oh, but they did,’ Fiddler said. ‘Just not in this realm. Am I right, Bottle? That sorcery, it’s like a broken gate, the kind that chews up whoever goes through it.’

  ‘Spirits below, Fid, you smelled it out about dead right. That magic, it started as one thing, then became another – and the mage was losing control, even before you minced him.’

  Fiddler nodded. He’d seen as much. Or thought he had. ‘So, Bottle, what does that mean?’

  The young mage shook his head. ‘Things are getting out of hand…somewhere. There was old stuff, primitive magic, at first. Not as ancient as spirit-bound stuff. Still, primitive. And then something chaotic grabbed it by the throat…’

  A short distance away, Koryk rolled onto his back. He was bone tired. Let Bottle and the sergeants mutter away, he knew they were neck-deep in Hood’s dusty shit.

  ‘Hey, Koryk.’

  ‘What is it, Smiles?’

  ‘You damned near lost it back there, you know.’

  ‘I did, did I?’

  ‘When them four came at you all at once, oh, you danced quite a jig, half-blood.’ She laughed, low and brimming with what sounded like malice. ‘And if I hadn’t come along to stick a knife in that one’s eye – the one who’d slipped under your guard and was ready to give you a wide belly smile – well, you’d be cooling fast back there right now.’

  ‘And the other three?’ Koryk asked, grinning in the gloom. ‘Bet you never knew I was that quick, did you?’

  ‘Something tells me you didn’t either.’

  He said nothing, because she was right. He’d been in something like a frenzy, yet his eye and his hand had been cold, precise. Through it all it had been as if he had simply watched, every move, every block, every shift in stance and twist, every slash of his heavy blade. Watched, yes, yet profoundly in love with that moment, with each moment. He’d felt some of this at the shield wall on the dock that night in Malaz City. But what had begun as vague euphoria was now transformed into pure revelation. I like killing. Gods below, I do like it, and the more I like it, the better at it I get. He never felt more alive, never more perfectly alive.

  ‘Can’t wait to see you dance again,’ Smiles murmured.

  Koryk blinked in the gloom, then shifted to face her. Was she stirred? Had he somehow kissed her awake between those muscled legs of hers? Because he’d killed well? Did I dance that jig, Smiles? ‘You get scarier, woman, the more I know you.’

  She snorted. ‘As it should be, half-blood.’

  Tarr spoke from Koryk’s other side: ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  A slightly more distant laugh from Cuttle, ‘Aye, Tarr, it’s what happens when your entire world view collapses. Of course,’ he added, ‘if you could manage to dance like poetry when killing people, who knows—’

  ‘Enough of that. Please.’

  ‘No worries,’ Cuttle persisted. ‘You ain’t the dancing kind. You’re as rooted as a tree, and just about as slow, Tarr.’

  ‘I may be slow, Cuttle, but the fools go down eventually, don’t they?’

  ‘Oh aye, that they do. Not suggesting otherwise. You’re a one-man shield-wall, you are.’

  Corporal Stormy was spitting blood. A damned elbow had cracked his mouth, and now two teeth were loose and he’d bitten his tongue. The elbow might have been his own – someone had collided hard with him in the scrap and he’d had his weapon arm lifted high with the sword’s point angled downward. Nearly wrenched his shoulder out of its damned socket.

  A savage back-swing with the pommel had crunched the attacker’s temple and he’d reeled away, one eye half popped out. Shortnose had then cut the Letherii down.

  That had been some charge, him and his heavies, Shortnose and the trio of dread ladies each one of whom could both stare down a rutting bhederin bull and beat it into a pulp if it came to that. Making Stormy a very happy sergeant. Bad luck about Sands, though. But we ain’t gonna lose any more. Not one. I got my heavies and we can take down whatever they throw at us.

  And not just us neither. That
Tarr and Koryk…Fid’s got a good mean pair in those. And that Smiles, she’s got the blackrock heart of a Claw. Good squads here, for this kinda work. And now we’re gonna turn round and kick ’em dead in the jaw, I can feel it. Fid and Gesler, cooking in Kellanved’s old cauldron.

  He was delighted the Adjunct had finally cut them loose. In just this way, too. To Hood with damned marching in column. No, cut in fast and low and keep going, aye, and keep their heads spinnin’ every which way. So the fools on their trail were coming for them, were they? And why not? Just two puny squads. And them probably in the hundreds by now.

  ‘Kellanved’s curse,’ he muttered with a grin.

  Flashwit’s round face loomed into view, ‘Say something, Corporal?’

  ‘Malazan marines, my dear, that’s us.’

  ‘Not heavies? I thought—’

  ‘You’re both, Flash. Relax. It’s this, you see – the Malazan marines haven’t done what they was trained to do in years, not since before Kellanved died. Trained, y’see. To do exactly what we’re doing right now, praise Fener. Them poor bastards Letherii and Edur, gods below, them poor ignorant fools.’

  ‘Smart enough to ambush us,’ Uru Hela said from beyond Flashwit.

  ‘Didn’t work though, did it?’

  ‘Only because—’

  ‘Enough from you, Uru Hela. I was talking here, right? Your corporal. So just listen.’

  ‘I was just askin’—’

  ‘Another word and you’re on report, soldier.’

  If she snorted she fast turned it into a cough.

  From Gesler up with Fiddler: ‘Quiet down there!’

  Point proved. Stormy nodded.

  Malazan marines. Hah.

  Fiddler nodded at the narrow, wending track snaking towards the nearest farmhouse and its meagre outbuildings. ‘We jog good and heavy, dragging our wounded, down there. Straight for the farmhouse along that cart path.’

  ‘Like we was still running scared, panicked,’ Gesler said. ‘Aye. Of course, we got to clear that farmhouse, which means killing civilians, and I have to say, Fid, I don’t like that.’

  ‘Maybe we can figure a way round that,’ Fiddler replied. ‘Bottle?’