Malice flashed through Kisswhere, ragged as a flag at midnight. Badan knows it. I know it. Tavore—you’ve stolen my sister. And that, you cold bitch, I will not accept!
I want her back, damn you.
I want my sister back.
‘So where is the fool?’
Fist Keneb shrugged. ‘Arbin prefers the company of heavies. The soldiers with dirt on their noses and dust storms in their skulls. The Fist plays knuckles with them, gets drunk with them, probably sleeps with some of them, for that matter.’
Blistig grunted as he sat down. ‘And this is the proper way to earn respect?’
‘That depends, I suppose,’ Keneb said. ‘If Arbin wins at knuckles, drinks everyone else under the table, and wears out every lover brave enough to share a bed, then maybe it works.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Keneb. A Fist needs to keep distant. Bigger than life, and meaner besides.’ He poured himself another tankard of the foamy local beer. ‘Glad you’re sitting here, I’d imagine.’
‘I didn’t even belong at the last reading. I was there in Grub’s place, that’s all.’
‘Now the boy’s got to swallow his own troubles.’ Blistig leaned forward—they had found an upscale tavern, overpriced and so not likely to draw any Malazan soldiers below the rank of captain, and for a time over the past weeks the Fists had gathered here, mostly to drink and complain. ‘What’s one of those readings like? Y’hear all sorts of rumours. People spitting up newts or snakes slithering out of their ears, and woe betide any baby born at that moment anywhere in the district—three eyes and forked tongues.’ He shook his head, drank down three quick mouthfuls, and then wiped at his mouth. ‘It’s said that whatever happened at that last one—it made up the Adjunct’s mind, about everything that followed. The whole night in Malaz City. All skirling out with the cards. Even Kalam’s murder—’
‘We don’t know he was murdered,’ cut in Keneb.
‘You were there, in that cabin,’ Blistig insisted. ‘What happened?’
Keneb glanced away, suddenly wanting something stronger than beer. He found that he was unaccountably chilled, clammy as if fevered. ‘It’s about to begin,’ he muttered. ‘Touched once . . .’
‘Anybody with neck hairs has left the barracks, did you know that? The whole damned army has scattered into the city tonight. You’re scaring me, Keneb.’
‘Relax,’ he heard himself reply. ‘I spat up only one newt, as I recall. Here comes Madan.’
Deadsmell had hired a room for the night, fourth floor with a balcony and quick access to the roof. A damned month’s wages, but he had a view of the temporary headquarters—well, its squat dome at any rate, and at the far end of the inn’s roof it was a short drop to an adjoining building, a quick sprint across its length and down to an alley not three streets from the river. Best he could do, all things considered.
Masan Gilani had arrived with a cask of ale and a loaf of bread, though the only function Deadsmell could foresee for the bread was to be used to soak up vomit—gods knew he wasn’t hungry. Ebron, Shard, Cord, Limp and Crump then crowded in, arms loaded with dusty bottles of wine. The mage was deathly pale and shaky. Cord, Shard and Limp looked frightened, while Crump was grinning like a man struck senseless by a fallen tree branch.
Scowling at them all, Deadsmell lifted his own knapsack from the floor and set it with a thump on the lone table. At the sound Ebron’s head snapped round.
‘Hood take you, necromancer, you and your stinking magics. If I’d a known—’
‘You weren’t even invited,’ Deadsmell said in a growl, ‘and you can leave any time. And what’s that ex-Irregular doing with that driftwood?’
‘I’m going to carve something!’ Crump said with a bright toothy smile, like a horse begging an apple. ‘Maybe a big fish! Or a troop of horse-soldiers! Or a giant salamander—though that could be dangerous, oh, too dangerous, unless’n I give its tail a plug so you can pull it off—and a hinged jaw that goes up and down and makes laughing sounds. Why I could—’
‘Stuff it in your mouth, is what you could do,’ Deadsmell cut in. ‘Better yet, I’ll do it for you, sapper.’
The smile faltered. ‘No need to be mean and all. We all come here to do stuff. Sergeant Cord and Corporal Shard are gonna drink, they said, and pray to the Queen of Dreams. Limp’s gonna sleep and Ebron’s gonna make protection magics and all.’ His equine eyes swivelled to Masan Gilani—who was slumped in the lone cushy chair, legs outstretched, lids lowered, fingers laced together on her lap—and Crump’s long jaw slowly sagged. ‘And she’s gonna be beautiful,’ he whispered.
Sighing, Deadsmell untied the pack’s leather strings and began lifting out various small dead creatures. A flicker bird, a black-furred rat, an iguana, and a strange blue-skinned, big-eyed thing that might be a bat or a shell-less turtle—he’d found the fox-sized creature hanging by its three-tipped tail on a stall in the market. The old woman had cackled when he’d purchased it, a rather ominous reaction, as far as Deadsmell was concerned. Even so, he had a decent enough—
Glancing up, he saw that everyone was staring at him. ‘What?’
Crump’s frown was darkening his normally insipid face into something . . . alarming. ‘You,’ he said. ‘You’re not, by any chance, you’re not a . . . a . . . a necromancer? Are you?’
‘I didn’t invite you here, Crump!’
Ebron was sweating. ‘Listen, sapper—you, Crump Bole or whatever your name is. You’re not a Mott Irregular no longer, remember that. You’re a soldier. A Bonehunter. You take orders from Cord, Sergeant Cord, right?’
Clearing his throat, Cord spoke up, ‘That’s right, Crump. And, uh, I’m ordering you to, uh, to carve.’
Crump blinked, licked his lips, and then nodded at his sergeant. ‘Carve, right. What do you want me to carve, Sergeant? Go on, anything! Except’n not no necromancers, all right?’
‘Sure. How about everybody here in this room, except Deadsmell, of course. But everyone else. Uhm, riding horses, galloping horses. Horses galloping over flames.’
Crump wiped at his lips and shot Masan Gilani a shy glance. ‘Her, too, Sergeant?’
‘Go ahead,’ Masan Gilani drawled. ‘Can’t wait to see it. Don’t forget to include yourself, Crump. On the biggest horse.’
‘Yah, with a giant sword in one hand and a cusser in the other!’
‘Perfect.’
Deadsmell returned to his menagerie of dead animals, arranging them in a circle, head to tail, on the tabletop.
‘Gods, those stink,’ Limp said. ‘Can’t you dip ’em in scented oils or something?’
‘No, I can’t. Now shut up everyone. This is about saving all our skins, right? Even yours, Ebron, as if Rashan’s going to help one whit tonight. To keep Hood from this room is down to me. So, no more interruptions, unless you want to kill me—’
Crump’s head bobbed up. ‘That sounds perfect—’
‘And everyone else, too, including you, Crump.’
‘That doesn’t sound so perfect.’
‘Carve,’ Cord ordered.
The sapper bent his head back down to the task once more, the tip of his tongue poking out like a botfly grub coming up for air.
Deadsmell fixed his attention on the array of carcasses. The fox-sized bat turtle thing seemed to be staring up at him with one giant doe eye. He fought down a shiver, the motion becoming a flinch when the dead iguana languidly blinked. ‘Gods below,’ he moaned. ‘High House Death has arrived.’
Corks started popping.
______
‘We’re being followed.’
‘Wha? Now Urb, tha’s your shadow, is all. We’re the ones doin’ th’folloan, right? I ain’t ’lowing no two-faced corporal a mine t’go awol—now, we turn leff ’ere—’
‘Right, Hellian. You just turned right.’
‘Tha’s only cos we’re side by side, meanin’ you see it diffren. It was leff for me and if it’s right for you tha’s your probbem. Now look, izzat a broffle? He went up a b
roffle? Wha kinda corporal o’ mine iz he? Whas wrong wi’ Mlazan women, hey? We get ’im an’ I wan you t’cut off his balls, okay? Put an end t’this onct and ferawl.’
When they arrived at the narrow stairs tucked between two broad, antiquated entrances, Hellian reached out with both hands, as if to grasp the rails. But there were no rails and so she fell flat on to the steps, audibly cracking her chin. ‘Ow! Damn reels broke right off in my hands!’ And she groped and clutched with her fingers. ‘Turned t’dust too, see?’
Urb leaned closer to make sure her sodden brains weren’t leaking out—not that Hellian would notice—and was relieved to see nothing more than a minor scrape on the underside of her chin. While she struggled to her feet, patting at her bleached hair, he glanced back once more up the street they had just come down. ‘It’s Skulldeath doing the lurking, Hellian—’
She reeled round, blinking owlishly. ‘Squealdeath? Him agin?’ She made more ineffectual adjustments to her hair. ‘Oh, he’s a darling thing, izzn’t he? Wants to climb inta my knickers—’
‘Hellian,’ Urb groaned. ‘He’s made that desire plain enough—he wants to marry you—’
She glared. ‘No no, ijit. He wants to wear ’em. All th’rest he don’t know nuffin about. He’s only done it wi’boys, y’see. Kept trying t’get on his stomach under me or me doin’ th’same under ’im wi’ the wrong ’ole showin’ an’ we end up wrasslin’ instead a other more fun stuff. Anyway, les go an’ get our corporal, affore he d’scends into cruption.’
Frowning to hide his discomfiture, Urb followed Hellian’s swaying behind up the stairs. ‘Soldiers use whores all the time, Hellian—’
‘It’s their innocence, Urb, that a right an’ proper sergeant needs t’concern ’erself wiff.’
‘They’re grown men, Hellian—they ain’t so innocent—’
‘Who? I wuz talkin’ bout my corporal, bout Touchy Breffless. The way he’s always talking wi’imself no woman’s gong go near ’im. Bein’ insane ain’t a quality women look for, y’know. In their men, I mean.’ She waved vaguely at the door in front of her. ‘Which iz why they’s now tryin’ whores, an’ I ain’t gonna allow it.’ She tried a few times to grasp the latch, finally succeeded, and then twisted it in both directions, up and down, up and down. ‘Gor b’low! Who invented this piece a crud?’
Urb reached past her and pushed open the door.
Hellian stepped in, still trying to work the latch. ‘Don’t worry, Urb, I’ll get it right—jus’ watch an’ learn.’
He edged past her and paused in the narrow hallway, impressed by the extraordinary wallpaper, which seemed to consist of gold leaf, poppy-red velvet and swaths of piebald rabbit skins all in a crazed pattern that unaccountably made him want to empty his coin purse. And the black wooden floor, polished and waxed until it seemed almost liquid, as if they were walking upon glass beneath which waited the torment of unending oblivion—he wondered if the whole thing weren’t ensorcelled.
‘Where you goin?’ Hellian demanded.
‘You opened the door,’ Urb said. ‘And asked me to take point.’
‘I did? I did? Take point—in a broffle?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Okay, then get your weapon out, Urb, in case we get jumped.’
He hesitated, and then said, ‘I’m a fast draw, Hellian.’
‘Not what I seen,’ she said behind him.
Confused, he paused again. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Meanin’ you need some lessons in cruption, I’d say.’ She straightened up, but that wasn’t so straight, since she used a wall to manage the posture. ‘Unless o’course it’s Squatdeath y’want. Not that you’d fit in my knickers, though. Hey, are these baby pelts?’
‘Rabbit. I ain’t interested in Skulldeath, Hellian. And no, I don’t want to wear your knickers—’
‘Listen you two—’ someone snapped from behind a door to one side, ‘quit that foreign jabbering and find a room!’
Face darkening, Hellian reached for her sword, but the scabbard was empty. ‘Who stole—you, Urb, gimme your sword, damn you! Or bust down this door—yah, this one ’ere. Bust it down the middle. Use your head—smash it!’
Instead of attempting any of that, Urb took Hellian’s arm and guided her farther down the corridor. ‘They’re not in that one,’ he said, ‘that man was speaking Letherii.’
‘That was Letherii? That foreign jabber? No wonder this city’s fulla ijits, talking like that.’
Urb moved up alongside another door and leaned close to listen. He grunted. ‘Voices. Negotiating. This could be the one.’
‘Kick it down, bash it, find us a battering ram or a cusser or an angry Napan—’
Urb flipped the latch and shoved the door back and then he stepped inside.
Two corporals, mostly undressed, and two women, one stick thin, the other grossly fat, all staring at him with wide eyes. Urb pointed at Brethless and then at Touchy. ‘You two, get your clothes on. Your sergeant’s in the corridor—’
‘No I ain’t!’ and Hellian reeled into the room, eyes blazing. ‘He hired two of ’em! Cruption! Scat, hags, afore I cut my leg off!’
The thin one spat something and suddenly had a knife in a hand, waving it threateningly as she advanced on Hellian. The fat prostitute picked up a chair and lumbered forward a step behind her.
Urb chopped one hand down to crack on the knife-wielder’s wrist—sending the weapon clattering on the floor—and used his other to grasp the fat woman’s face and push her back. Squealing, the monstrous whore fell on to her ample backside—the room shook with the impact. Clutching her bruised forearm, the skinny one darted past and out the door, shrieking.
The corporals were scrambling with their clothes, faces frantic with worry.
‘Get a refund!’ Hellian bellowed. ‘Those two should be paying you! Not t’other way round! Hey, who called in the army?’
The army, as it turned out, was the establishment’s six pleasure guards, armed with clubs, but the fight in the room only turned nasty when the fat woman waded back in, chair swinging.
Standing near the long table, Brys Beddict took a cautious sip of the foreign ale, bemused at the motley appearance of the reading’s participants, the last of whom arrived half-drunk with a skittish look to his eyes. An ex-priest of some sort, he surmised.
They were a serious, peculiar lot, these Malazans. With a talent for combining offhand casual rapport with the grimmest of subject matter, a careless repose and loose discipline with savage professionalism. He was, he admitted, oddly charmed.
At the same time, the Adjunct was somewhat more challenging in that respect. Tavore Paran seemed virtually devoid of social graces, despite her noble ancestry—which should have schooled her in basic decorum; as indeed her high military rank should have smoothed all the jagged edges of her nature. The Adjunct was awkward in command and clumsy in courtesy, as if consistently distracted by some insurmountable obstacle.
Brys could imagine that such an obstacle might well be found in the unruliness of her legions. And yet her officers and soldiers displayed not a flicker of insubordination, not a single eye-roll behind her back, nor the glare of daggers cast sidelong. There was loyalty, yes, but it was strangely flavoured and Brys was still unable to determine its nature.
Whatever the source of the Adjunct’s distraction, she was clearly finding no release from its strictures, and Brys thought that the burden was slowly overwhelming her.
Most of the others were strangers to him, or at best vaguely familiar faces attesting to some past incidental encounter. He knew the High Mage, Ben Adaephon Delat, known to the other Malazans as Quick Ben—although to Brys that name seemed a version lacking in the respect a Ceda surely deserved. He knew Hedge and Fiddler as well, both of whom had been among the soldiers first into the palace.
Others in the group startled him. Two children, a boy and a girl, and a Tiste Andii woman, mature in years and manner and clearly put out by her inclusion in this ragged assembly
. All the rest, with the exception of the ex-priest, were officers or soldiers in the Adjunct’s army. Two gold-skinned, fair-haired marines—neither young—named Gesler and Stormy. A nondescript man named Bottle who couldn’t be much older than two decades; and Tavore’s aide, the startlingly beautiful, tattooed officer, Lostara Yil, who moved with a dancer’s grace and whose exotic features were only tempered by an air of ineffable sorrow.
Soldiers lived difficult lives, Brys well knew. Friends lost in horrible, sudden ways. Scars hardening over the years, ambitions crushed and dreams set aside. The world of possibilities diminished and betrayals threatened from every shadow. A soldier must place his or her trust in the one who commands, and by extension in that which the commander serves in turn. In the case of these Bonehunters, Brys understood that they and their Adjunct had been betrayed by their empire’s ruler. They were adrift, and it was all Tavore could do to hold the army together: that they had launched an invasion of Lether was in itself extraordinary. Divisions and brigades—in his own kingdom’s history—had mutinied in response to commands nowhere near as extreme. For this reason alone, Brys held the Adjunct in true respect, and he was convinced that she possessed some hidden quality, a secret virtue, that her soldiers well recognized and responded to—and Brys wondered if he would come to see it for himself, perhaps this very night.
Although he stood at ease, curious and moderately attentive, sipping his ale, he could well sense the burgeoning tension in the room. No one was happy, least of all the sergeant who would awaken the cards—the poor man looked as bedraggled as a dog that had just swum the breadth of River Lether, his eyes red-shot and bleak, his face battered as if he had been in a brawl.
The young soldier named Bottle was hovering close to Fiddler, and, employing—perhaps for Brys’s benefit—the trader tongue, he spoke to the sergeant in a low tone. ‘Time for a Rusty Gauntlet?’
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