The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  The morning lost its gleam. Strange clouds gathered, and across the sky, flights of birds fled into the north. Sceptre Irkullas rode straight-backed on his horse, riding the sweaty palm, as the fist began to close.

  ‘Gatherer of skulls, where is the fool taking us?’

  Strahl, Bakal observed, was in the habit of repeating himself, as if his questions were a siege weapon, flinging stones at what he hoped was a weak point in the solid wall of his ignorance. Sooner or later, through the dust and patter of crumbling mortar, he would catch his first glimpse of the answers he sought.

  Bakal had no time for such things. If he had questions, he burned them to the ground where they stood, smiling through the drifting ashes. The wall awaiting them all would come toppling down before too long. To our regret.

  ‘We’ve left a bloody trail,’ Strahl then added, and Bakal knew the warrior’s eyes were fixed upon Hetan’s back, as she limped, tottered and stumbled a short distance ahead of them in the column. Early in the day, when the warriors were still fresh, their breaths acrid with the anticipation of battle—perhaps only a day away—one would drag her from the line and take her on the side of the path, with others shouting their encouragement. A dozen times since dawn, this had occurred. Now, everyone walked as slowly as she, and no one had the energy to use her. Of food there was plenty; their lack was water. This wretched land was an old hag, her tits dry and withered. Bakal could almost see her toothless grin through the waves of heat rising above the yellow grasses on all sides, the nubbed horizon with its rotten stumps of bedrock protruding here and there.

  The bloody trail Strahl spoke of marked the brutal consolidation of power by Warchief Maral Eb and his two brothers, Sagal and Kashat. And the widow, Sekara the Vile. What a cosy family they made! He turned his head and spat, since he found the mere thought of them fouled the taste on his tongue.

  There had been two more attempts on his life. If not for Strahl and the half-dozen other Senan who’d elected themselves his guardians, he would now be as dead as his wife and her would-be lover. A widow walked a few steps behind him. Estaral would have died by her husband’s hand if not for Bakal. Yet the truth was, his saving her life had been an accidental by-product of his bloodlust, even though he had told her otherwise. That night of storms had been like a fever coursing through the Barghast people. Such a night had been denied them all when Onos Toolan assumed command after Humbrall Taur’s drowning—he had drawn his stone sword before all the gathered clan chiefs and said, ‘The first murder this night will be answered by me. Take hold of your wants, your imagined needs, and crush the life from them.’ His will was not tested. As it turned out, too much was held back, and this time everyone had lunged into madness.

  ‘They won’t rest until you’re dead, you know.’

  ‘Then they’d best be quick,’ Bakal replied. ‘For tomorrow we do battle with the Akrynnai.’

  Strahl grunted. ‘It’s said they have D’ras with them. And legions of Saphii Spears.’

  ‘Maral Eb will choose the place. That alone can decide the battle. Unlike our enemy, we are denied retreat. Either we win, or we fall.’

  ‘They think to take slaves.’

  ‘The Barghast kneel to no one. The grandmothers will slide knives across the throats of our children, and then sever the taproot of their own hearts.’

  ‘Our gods shall sing and so summon us all through the veil.’

  Bakal bared his teeth. ‘Our gods would be wise to wear all the armour they own.’

  Three paces behind the two warriors, Estaral stared at Bakal, the man who had killed her husband, the man who had saved her life. At times she felt as if she was walking the narrowest bridge over a depthless crevasse, a bridge reeled out behind Bakal. At other moments the world suddenly opened before her, vast as a flooding ocean, and she flailed in panic, even as, in a rush of breathless astonishment, she comprehended the truth of her freedom. Finding herself alone made raw the twin births of fear and excitement, and both sizzled to the touch. Estaral alternated between cursing and blessing the warrior striding before her. He was her shield, yes, behind which she could hide. He also haunted her with the memory of that terrible night when she’d looked into her husband’s eyes and saw only contempt—and then the dark desire to murder her.

  Had she really been that useless to him? That disgusting? He could not have always seen her so, else he would never have married her—she remembered seeing smiles on his face, years ago now, it was true, but she could have sworn there had been no guile in his eyes. She measured out the seasons since those bright, rushing days, seeking signs of her failure, struggling to find the fatal threshold she had so unwittingly crossed. But the memories swirled round like a vortex, drawing her in, and everything blurred, spun past, and the only thing she could focus on was her recollection of his two faces: the smiling one, the one ugly with malice, flitting back and forth.

  She was too old to be desired ever again, and even if she had not been so, it was clear now that she could not keep a man’s love alive. Weak, foolish, blind, and now widow to a husband who’d sought to kill her.

  Bakal had not hesitated. He’d killed her man as she might wring the neck of a yurt rat. And then he had turned to his wife—she had stood defiant until his first step towards her, and then she had collapsed to her knees, begging for her life. But that night had been the night of Hetan’s hobbling. The beast of mercy had been gutted and its bloody skin staked to the ground. She’d begged even as he opened her throat.

  Blood flows down. I saw it doing just that. Down their bodies, down and down. I thought he would turn to me then and do the same—I witnessed his shame, his rage. And he knew, if I had been a better wife, my husband would never have fixed his eyes upon his wife. And so, the failure and the crime was mine as well.

  I would not have begged.

  Instead, he had cleaned his knife and sheathed it. And when he looked upon her, she saw his fury fall away, and his eyes glistened. ‘I wish you had not seen this, Estaral.’

  ‘You wish he’d already killed me?’

  ‘No—I came here to stop them doing that.’

  That had confused her. ‘But I am nothing to you, Bakal.’

  ‘But you are,’ he said. ‘Without you, I would have no choice but to see this night—to see what I have done here—as black vengeance. As the rage of a jealous man—but you see, I really didn’t care. She was welcome to whoever she wanted. But she had no right—nor your husband there—they had no right to kill you.’

  ‘You are the slayer of Onos Toolan.’ She still did not know why she had said that then. Had she meant that the night of blood was his and his alone?

  He had flinched, and his face had drained. She’d thought then that he regretted sparing her life; indeed, that he might even change his mind. Instead, he turned away and an instant later he was gone.

  Did she know that her words would wound him? Why should they? Was he not proud of his glorious deed?

  Of course, Bakal had since failed to become the leader of the Barghast. Perhaps he had already seen the power slipping from his grasp, that night. So she followed him now. Had tethered herself to him, all with the intention of taking back her words, and yet not one step she took in pursuit found her any closer. Days now, nights of hovering like a ghost beyond the edge of his hearth-fire. She had witnessed the attempt on him by the first assassin, a Barahn warrior desperate for status—Strahl had cut him down five strides from Bakal. The next time it had been an arrow sent through the darkness, missing Bakal’s head by less than a hand’s-width. Strahl and three other warriors had rushed off after the archer but they had lost the would-be killer.

  Upon returning, Strahl had muttered about Estaral’s spectral presence—calling her the Reaper’s eyes, wondering if she stayed close in order to witness Bakal’s death. It seemed Strahl believed she hated Bakal for killing her husband. But the notion of hate had never even occurred to her, not for him, anyway.

  She wanted to speak with Bakal. She wan
ted to explain and if she could understand her own motivations from that night, why, she would do just that. Salve the wound, perhaps heal it completely. They shared something, the two of them, didn’t they? He must have understood, even if Strahl didn’t.

  But now they spoke of a battle with the Akrynnai, a final clash to decide who would rule this land. Maral Eb would lead the Barghast, warriors in their tens of thousands. It had been one thing for the Akrynnai to strike clan camps—now at last all of the White Face Barghast were assembled and no tribe in the world could defeat such an army. Even so, Bakal might die in the battle—he would be commanding the Senan after all, and it was inconceivable to imagine Maral Eb being so arrogant as not to position the most powerful clan in the line’s centre. No, the Senan would form the jagged wedge and it would cut savage and deep.

  She should approach him soon, perhaps this very night. If only to take back my words. He struck them down to save my life, after all. He said so. Even though I was the cause of so much—

  She had missed something, and now Bakal had sent Strahl away and was dropping back to her side. Suddenly her mouth was dry.

  ‘Estaral, I must ask of you a favour.’

  Something in his tone whispered darkness. No more death. Please. If she had other lovers—

  ‘Hetan,’ he said under his breath. ‘You are among the women who guard her at night.’

  She blinked. ‘Not for much longer, Bakal,’ she said. ‘She is past the time of fleeing. There is nothing in her eyes. She is hobbled. Last night there were but two of us.’

  ‘And tonight there will be one.’

  ‘Perhaps not even that. Warriors will use her, likely through the night.’

  ‘Gods’ shit, I didn’t think of that!’

  ‘If you want her—’

  ‘I do not. Listen, with the sun’s fall, as warriors gather for their meals, can you be the one to feed her?’

  ‘The food just falls from her mouth,’ Estaral said. ‘We let the children do that—it entertains them, forcing it down as if she was a babe.’

  ‘Not tonight. Take it on yourself.’

  ‘Why?’ I want to speak with you. Take things back. I want to lie with you, Bakal, and take back so much more.

  He fixed his eyes upon her own, searching for something—she quickly glanced away, in case he discovered her thoughts. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why are you women so eager to hobble another woman?’

  ‘I had no hand in that.’

  ‘That is not what I asked.’

  She had never before considered such a thing. It was what was done. It had always been so. ‘Women have claws.’

  ‘I know—I’ve seen it often enough. I’ve seen it in battle. But hobbling—that’s different. Isn’t it?’

  She refused to meet his eyes. ‘You don’t understand. I didn’t mean the claws of a warrior. I meant the claws we keep hidden, the ones we use only against other women.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You speak now in the way Onos Toolan did—all his questions about the things we’ve always done. Was it not this that saw him killed, Bakal? He kept questioning things that he had no right to question.’

  She saw as he lifted his right hand. He seemed to be studying it.

  His knife hand.

  ‘His blood,’ he whispered, ‘has poisoned me.’

  ‘When we turn on our own,’ she said, struggling to put her thoughts into words, ‘it is as water in a skin finds a hole. There is so much . . . weight—’

  ‘Pressure.’

  ‘Yes, that is the word. We turn on our own, to ease the pressure. All eyes are on her, not us. All desire—’ she stopped then, stifling a gasp.

  But he’d caught it—he’d caught it all. ‘Are men the reason then? Is that what you’re saying?’

  She felt a flush of anger, like knuckles rapping up her spine. ‘Answer me this, Bakal’—and she met his wide eyes unflinchingly—‘how many times was your touch truly tender? Upon your wife? Tell me, how often did you laugh with your friends when you saw a woman emerge from her home with blood crusting her lip, a welt beneath an eye? “Oh, the wild wolf rutted last night!” And then you grin and you laugh—do you think we do not hear? Do you think we do not see? Hobble her! Take her, all of you! And, for as long as she lifts to you, you leave us alone!’

  Heads had turned at her venomous tone—even if they could not quite make out her words, as she had delivered them low, like the hiss of a dog-snake as it wraps tight the crushed body in its embrace. She saw a few mocking smiles, saw the muted swirls of unheard jests. ‘Bound tight in murder, those two, and already they spit at each other!’ ‘No wonder their mates leapt into each other’s arms!’

  Bakal managed to hold her glare a moment longer, as if he could hold back her furious, bitter words, and then he looked ahead once more. A rough sigh escaped him. ‘I remember his nonsense—or so I thought it at the time. His tales of the Imass—he said the greatest proof of strength a male warrior could display was found in not once touching his mate with anything but tenderness.’

  ‘And you sneered.’

  ‘I saw women sneer at that, too.’

  ‘And if we hadn’t, Bakal? If you’d seen us with something else in our eyes?’

  He grimaced and then nodded. ‘A night or two of the wild wolf—’

  ‘To beat out such treasonous ideas, yes. You did not understand—none of you did. If you hadn’t killed him, he would have changed us all.’

  ‘And women such as Sekara the Vile?’

  She curled her lip. ‘What of them?’

  He grunted. ‘Of course. Greed and power are her only lovers—in that, she is no different from us men.’

  ‘What do you want with Hetan?’

  ‘Nothing. Never mind.’

  ‘You no longer trust me. Perhaps you never did. It was only the pool of blood we’re both standing in.’

  ‘You follow me. You stand just beyond the firelight every night.’

  I am alone. Can’t you see that? ‘Why did you murder him? I will tell you. It’s because you saw him as a threat, and he was surely that, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I—I did not—’ He halted, shook his head. ‘I want to steal her away. I want it to end.’

  ‘It’s too late. Hetan is dead inside. Long dead. You took away her husband. You took away her children. And then you—we—took away her body. A flower cut from its root quickly dies.’

  ‘Estaral.’

  He was holding on to a secret, she realized.

  Bakal glanced at her. ‘Cafal.’

  She felt her throat tighten—was it panic? Or the promise of vengeance? Retribution? Even if it meant her own death? Oh, I see now. We’re still falling.

  ‘He is close,’ Bakal went on under his breath. ‘He wants her back. He wants me to steal her away. Estaral, I need your help—’

  She searched his face. ‘You would do this for him? Do you hate him that much, Bakal?’

  She might as well have struck him in the face.

  ‘He—he is a shaman, a healer—’

  ‘No Barghast shaman has ever healed one of the hobbled.’

  ‘None has tried!’

  ‘Perhaps it is as you say, Bakal. I see that you do not want to wound Cafal. You would do this to give to him what he seeks.’

  He nodded once, as if unable to speak.

  ‘I will take her from the children,’ Estaral said. ‘I will lead her to the west end of the camp. But, Bakal, there will be pickets—we are at the eve of battle—’

  ‘I know. Leave the warriors to me.’

  She didn’t know why she was doing this. Nor did she understand the man walking at her side. But what difference did knowing make? Just as easy to live in ignorance, scraped clean of expectation, emptied of beliefs and faith, even hopes. Hetan is hobbled. No different in the end from every other woman suffering the same fate. She’s been cut down inside, and the stem lies bruised and lifeless. She was once a great warrior. She was once proud, her wit sharp as a t
horn, ever quick to laugh but never with cruelty. She was indeed a host of virtues, but they had availed her nothing. No strength of will survives hobbling. Not a single virtue. This is the secret of humiliation: the deadliest weapon the Barghast have.

  She could see Hetan up ahead, her matted hair, her stumbles brought up by the crooked staff the hobbled were permitted when on the march. The daughter of Humbrall Taur was barely recognizable. Did her father’s spirit stand witness, there in the Reaper’s shadow? Or had he turned away?

  No, he rides his last son’s soul. That must be what has so maddened Cafal.

  Well, to honour Hetan’s father, she would do this. When the Barghast came to rest at this day’s end. She was tired. She was thirsty. She hoped it would be soon.

  ______

  Kashat pointed. ‘See there, brother. The ridge forms half a circle.’

  ‘Not much of a slope,’ Sagal muttered.

  ‘Look around,’ Kashat said, snorting. ‘It’s about the best we can manage. This land is pocked, but those pocks are old and worn down. Anyway, that ridge marks the biggest of those pocks—you can see that for yourself. And the slope is rocky—they would lose horses charging up that.’

  ‘So they flank us instead.’

  ‘We make strongpoints at both ends, with crescents of archers positioned behind them to take any riders attempting an encirclement.’

  ‘With the rear barricaded by the wagons.’

  ‘Held by mixed archers and pike-wielders, yes, exactly. Listen, Sagal, by this time tomorrow we’ll be picking loot from heaps of corpses. The Akrynnai army will be shattered, their villages undefended—we can march into the heart of their territory and claim it for ourselves.’

  ‘An end to the Warleader, the rise of the first Barghast King.’

  Kashat nodded. ‘And we shall be princes, and the King shall grant us provinces to rule. Our very own herds. Horses, bhederin, rodara. We shall have Akrynnai slaves, as many of their young women as we want, and we shall live in keeps—do you remember, Sagal? When we were young, our first war, marching down to Capustan—we saw the great stone keeps all in ruin along the river. We shall build ourselves those, one each.’