The Malazan Empire

by Steven Erikson

  Brys held up a hand in greeting.

  The Edur grasped it and Brys grunted as the man leaned forward, giving him all his weight. The face, pitted and rotted, lifted to his own.

  And the Edur spoke. ‘Friend, do you know me? Will you bless me?’

  When his eyes snapped open, Aranict was ready for him, ready for the raw horror of his expression, the soul exposed and shaken to its very core, and she took him tight in her arms. And knew, in the pit of her heart, that she was losing him.

  Back. He’s on his way back, and I cannot hold on to him. I cannot. She felt him shudder, and his flesh felt cold, almost damp. He smells of…salt.

  It was some time before his breathing calmed, and then once more he was asleep. She slowly disengaged herself, rose, throwing on a cloak, and stepped out from the tent. It was near dawn, the encampment still and quiet as a graveyard. Overhead, the Jade Strangers cut a vast swathe across the night sky, poised like talons about to descend.

  She drew out her tinder box and a stick of rustleaf. To ease the gnawing hunger.

  This land was ruined, in many ways far worse than the Wastelands. All around them were signs of past prosperity. Entire villages now empty, abandoned to weeds, dust and the scattered remnants left by those who had once lived there. The fields surrounding the farms were blown down to rocks and clay, and not a single tree remained – only stumps or, here and there, pits where even the stumps had been dug out. There was no animal life, no birds, and every well they examined, every stream bed her minor mages worked over, seeking to draw water from the depths, yielded little more than soupy sludge. Their few remaining horses were suffering and might not even make it into Kolanse proper. And the rest of us aren’t doing much better. Low on food, exhausting ourselves sinking wells, and knowing that somewhere ahead a well-rested, well-fed army waits for us.

  She drew hard on the stick, looked eastward to the distant camp of the Bolkando. No fires. Even the standards tilted like the masts of some foundered ship. I fear we won’t be enough, not to do what the Adjunct needed, what she wanted. It may prove that this entire journey will end in failure, and death.

  Brys came out of the tent to stand beside her. He took the stick from her fingers and drew on it. He’d begun doing that a few weeks past, seeking, perhaps, to calm his nerves in the wake of his nightmares. But she didn’t mind. She liked the company.

  ‘I can almost taste the thoughts of my soldiers,’ he said. ‘We will have to kill and eat the last horses. Won’t be enough – even sparing the water to make a stew…ah, if we could have scavenged, this might have succeeded.’

  ‘We’re not done yet, my love.’ Please, I beg you, do not answer that with yet another sad smile. With each one, I feel you slip further away.

  ‘It is our growing weakness that worries them the most,’ he said. ‘They fear we won’t be fit to fight.’

  ‘The Perish, if anything, will be even worse off.’

  ‘But they will have some days in which to recover. Besides which, Aranict, one must fear more the Assail army.’

  She lit a second stick, and then gestured with one hand. ‘If all of Kolanse is like this, they won’t have an army.’

  ‘Queen Abrastal assures me that Kolanse continues to thrive, with what the sea offers, and the fertile valley province of Estobanse continues to produce, sheltered from the drought.’

  And each night the nightmares take you. And each night I lie awake, watching you. Wondering about all the other paths we could have taken. ‘How have we failed her?’ Aranict asked. ‘What more could we have done?’

  Brys grimaced. ‘This is the risk when you march an army into the unknown. In truth, no commander in his or her right mind would even contemplate such a precipitous act. Even in the invasion of new territories, all is preceded by extensive scouting, contact with local elements, and as much background intelligence as one can muster: history, trade routes, past wars.’

  ‘Then, without the Bolkando, we would truly be marching blind. If Abrastal had not concluded that it was in her kingdom’s interest to pursue this – Brys, have we misjudged the Adjunct from the very beginning? Did we fall into the trap of assuming she knew more than she did, that all that she had set out to do was actually achievable?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  He reached over and took the new stick of rustleaf. ‘On whether she has succeeded in crossing the Glass Desert, I suppose.’

  ‘A crossing that cannot be made.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Brys, not even the Adjunct can will her Malazans to achieve the impossible. The world sets physical limits and we must live by them, or those limits will kill us. Look around – we are almost out of food and water. And this land has nothing to give us, and just as the farmers and villagers all fled or perished, so too are we faced with the same, hard reality. The country is destroyed.’

  He seemed to be studying the sky. ‘My father was not an imaginative man. He could never understand me and Tehol – especially Tehol. Our brother Hull, well now, he started out as the perfect eldest son, only to be pronounced dead in the eyes of Father.’ He was silent for a few moments, smoking, and then he resumed. ‘Beyond all the tutors foisted upon us, it was our father who insisted on delivering his one lesson. Even if it killed us, he would teach us the value of pragmatism. Which is, as I am sure you well understand, nothing more than a cogent recognition of reality: its limits, its demands and its necessities.’

  Aranict cocked her head, wondering at the direction of his thoughts. ‘Beloved, of all men, the name of Tehol does not come to mind when I think pragmatic.’

  He glanced across at her. ‘And what of me?’

  ‘In you, yes. You are a weaponmaster, after all. I never knew Hull, so of him I cannot say.’

  ‘So, you conclude that of the three Beddict brothers, I alone absorbed our father’s harsh lessons in pragmatism.’

  She nodded.

  Brys looked away again, this time to the southeast. ‘How far away, do you think, lies the coast?’

  ‘Proper marching, three days – if the queen’s maps are at all accurate.’

  ‘Oh,’ he murmured, ‘I am sure they are.’

  ‘It’s almost dawn,’ Aranict said.

  ‘We will not march today, my love.’

  She shot him a look. ‘A day’s rest – at this point – could prove counterproductive.’

  He flicked away the stick, eyes tracking the glowing end. ‘Before he…changed his mind about things, Tehol became the wealthiest man in Lether, Aranict. Ask yourself, how could he have done that, if in pragmatism he was an utter failure?’ He faced the camp. ‘Today, we eat the last of our food, and drink the last of our water.’

  ‘Brys?’

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I will walk over to the Bolkando camp. Will you join me, love?’

  ‘Mud of the gods, woman, what are you doing?’

  Abrastal looked up. ‘What does it look as if I’m doing, Spax?’

  Her fiery tresses lay heaped on the tent floor. She was wrapped in her blanket and as far as he could tell, naked underneath. He watched as she resumed slashing long lengths away with her knife. ‘I witness,’ he said, ‘the death of my lust.’

  ‘Good. It’s about time. I was never going to bed you, Barghast.’

  ‘Not the point. It was the desire I took so much pleasure in.’

  ‘That’s pathetic.’

  Spax shrugged. ‘I am an ugly man. This is how ugly men get through each damned day.’

  ‘You’ve been bedding my daughter.’

  ‘She only does it to infuriate you, Highness.’

  Abrastal paused with her knife, looked up at him. ‘And has it succeeded?’

  Grinning, Spax said, ‘So I tell her every night. All about your rants, your foaming mouth, your outrage and fury.’

  ‘Ugly and clever, a deadly combination in any man.’

  ‘Or woman, I would wager.’

  ‘What do you want?’
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  ‘My scouts have returned from the coast, Highness. With news.’

  Finally, she sensed something in him, in his tone, or the look in his eyes, for she slowly straightened. ‘Are we flanked, Warchief?’

  ‘No enemy in sight, Highness.’

  ‘Then what? As you can see, I’m armed, and my patience is getting as short as my hair.’

  ‘Ships were sighted. A rag-tag fleet.’

  ‘Ships? Under what flag?’

  ‘Letherii, Highness.’

  Suddenly she was on her feet. Her hair only half shorn, she flung the knife away. The blanket slipped down and Spax found himself staring at her magnificent body.

  ‘Highness, I could live with that short hair.’

  ‘Get out of here – and send a messenger to Brys.’

  ‘No need, Highness – about the messenger, I mean. He and Aranict are even now approaching camp.’

  She was casting about for her clothes. Now she paused. ‘This was planned!’

  Spax shrugged. ‘Possibly. But then, why not tell us? I’m more inclined to think this gesture was made by the king, entirely on his own.’

  She grunted. ‘You might be right. What else did the scouts see?’

  ‘Landings, Highness. Battalion strength, Letherii infantry and auxiliaries. And more supplies than any single battalion would ever need.’

  ‘Was the Imperial Standard flying? Does King Tehol command?’

  ‘No, only the battalion colours were present, as far as my scouts could determine. In any case, just this last night, my scouts realized that riders were on their trail. They too will be upon us shortly.’

  She was still standing before him, in all her glory. ‘What are you still doing here?’

  ‘Answering your questions, Highness.’

  ‘I am finished with my questions. Get out.’

  ‘One more detail you might be interested learning,’ Spax said. ‘Among the auxiliaries, Highness, there are Teblor.’

  Abrastal and Warchief Spax were waiting outside the queen’s tent, and Aranict studied them as she and Brys approached. Both were arrayed in their full regalia, the queen looking imperial though the hair on one side of her head was shorn away, and the Gilk Warchief festooned in weapons and wearing an ankle-length cloak made of turtle shells. What is this? What has happened?

  Abrastal was the first to speak. ‘Prince Brys, it seems we shall be entertaining guests shortly.’

  ‘Before you ask,’ Brys replied, ‘this was not arranged beforehand. However, the last messengers I sent back to my brother detailed what we then knew of our route. At the time, we were ten days into the Wastelands.’

  ‘Still,’ she said, ‘the timing of this is…extraordinary.’

  ‘My brother’s Ceda is able to sense, even at a great distance, sorcerous efforts seeking groundwater.’ He turned slightly to nod at Aranict. ‘As you know, our legion mages have been engaged in such rituals ever since we left the Wastelands.’

  Abrastal’s voice was flat. ‘Your Ceda was able to track us based on the drawing of water from the ground…while he sits ensconced in the palace in Letheras? You expect me to give credit to that explanation, Prince? Not even a god could reach that far.’

  ‘Yes, well.’

  They could hear horses now, coming in from the southeast, and the Bolkando camp was suddenly stirring, as exhausted, suffering soldiers left their bivouacs to line the main avenue between tent rows. Voices were lifting – and now Aranict could see the vanguard. She squinted at the pennants. ‘Sire,’ she said to Brys, ‘Letherii, yes, but I do not recognize the heraldry – what battalion is that?’

  ‘A new one, I would hazard,’ Brys replied.

  The battalion commander halted his troop with a gesture and then rode forward until he was ten paces from Brys and the others. He dismounted in a clatter of armour, removed his helm and then walked to kneel before the prince.

  ‘Idist Tennedict, sire, commanding the Chancel Battalion.’

  ‘Please stand, Commander,’ said Brys. ‘Your arrival is most welcome. Idist Tennedict – I believe I know that family name though at the moment I cannot place it.’

  ‘Yes, sire. My father was one of your brother’s principal stake-holders, and numbered among the first to go under on the Day of Losses.’

  ‘I see. It seems, however, that the Tennedict family has recovered from its…misfortune.’

  ‘Yes, and the king has seen fit to reward us, sire –’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘– in the form of community service, under his new programme of Indebtedness to the Community, sire. As the middle son and facing few prospects, I elected to take the military route for my community service, while the rest of the Tennedict family set to reforming the impoverished conditions of the indigents out on the Isles.’

  Abrastal made a sound somewhere between disbelief and disgust. ‘Forgive my interruption, Commander. Am I to understand that the king of Lether, having ruined your family’s wealth, has since seen fit to demand from you a period of public service?’

  ‘That is correct, Highness.’

  ‘How is that even remotely fair?’

  Idist managed a faint smile as he regarded her. ‘On the matter of fairness, Queen, King Tehol had much to say to my father, and all those others who profit from the debts of others.’

  Abrastal scowled. ‘Speaking from a position of great privilege, I find that offensive.’

  ‘Highness,’ said Idist, ‘I believe that was the point.’

  Brys spoke. ‘Commander, you bring not only yourselves, but also resupply, is that correct?’

  ‘It is, sire. In addition, I carry a written missive from the king, addressed to you.’

  ‘Do you have it with you?’

  ‘I do, sire.’

  ‘Then, please, read it to us.’

  The young commander’s brows lifted. ‘Sire? Perhaps, some privacy…’

  ‘Not at all, Commander. You seem to have the voice of a drill sergeant as it is. Lend it to my brother’s words, if you please.’

  All at once the man was sweating, and Aranict felt a sudden sympathy. She leaned close to Brys. ‘You might want to reconsider, love. This is your brother, after all.’

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘His own words, Brys.’

  The prince frowned. ‘Ah, right.’

  But Idist had begun. ‘“Greetings to Prince Brys from King Tehol the Only of Lether. Dearest brother, have you slept with her yet?”’ Wisely, he paused then and looked up at the prince. On all sides, from the soldiers within earshot to Abrastal and Spax, there was deathly silence. Sighing, Aranict lit a stick of rustleaf.

  Brys stood, one hand over his eyes, and then, with a helpless gesture, bade Idist continue.

  ‘“Never mind, we can talk about that later, but let it be known that as king I can command from you every detail down to the very last, er, detail, all the while promising that my wife will never hear a single word of any of it. Since, as I am sure you have now discovered, pillow talk can be deadly.

  ‘“Best I turn now to the dull, official content next, so that we can later return to the juicy details. I feel justified in such expectations since I have discovered that women actually engage in the most horrendously explicit discussions of their menfolk when in the company of their bosomed friends, inviting tit for tat, and what tit could be more inviting than tat?”’

  Spax burst out a harsh laugh, and then ducked. ‘Sorry, that was just me, being appalled.’

  Idist resumed. ‘“Official now. Bugg formed up his own battalion, found an able commander for it, and then hired a fleet to transport said reinforcements along with all the resupply he could wedge into the holds. And then, following my proclamation of the sovereignty of the indigents out on the Isles, Bugg oversaw all the Teblor who, strangely, rushed to join the Letherii military with the aim of accompanying the Chancel fleet. Between you and me, the Teblor have to be the most contrary people I have ever known. Anyway, with all of Bugg doing this and Bug
g doing that, I am understandably exhausted and I graciously accept your sympathy. To continue, the battalion now has three hundred Teblor in its auxiliaries. I believe some ancient prophecy has them in an advanced state of excitement.

  ‘“Just as my very own prophecy of your impending love-life having now come true (I trust), why, I am left in an advanced state of excitement – but not improperly so, I assure you. That would be sick. Never mind tales of war and mayhem, brother, spin me a romance! Trapped in a palace and chained to a wife, well, you can imagine my desperation here.

  ‘“Sincerely as I am to put into practice a new period of austerity here in the palace, I have just discovered the error of dictating this missive to my wife. So I will take this moment, before fleeing the room, to send to you all my love, and to extend my warmest greetings to everyone else whom you have forced into the awkward position of hearing this.

  ‘“With deepest affection, your loving brother, King Tehol.”’

  ‘Prince Brys,’ murmured Abrastal, ‘you have my sympathies.’

  Brys sighed, and then, in a remarkably calm and steady voice, he addressed Idist. ‘Commander, when will the battalion arrive?’

  ‘They have already begun their march, sire. Two days behind us. I left orders to push on into the night and rise before dawn, so with luck they will arrive by dusk tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, Commander.’

  As they walked back to the Letherii encampment, Idist and his troop maintaining a respectful distance behind them, Aranict took Brys’s hand. ‘All that cheering and laughter – that was in gratitude. You do realize that, don’t you?’

  He frowned.

  ‘Brys.’

  ‘He does it on purpose, you know. Sees me as far too serious – but then, it just so happens I am about to lead my soldiers into war. We have marched a long way and have suffered deprivations, and our enemy awaits us, fit, rested and probably thoroughly entrenched. That enemy will be choosing the ground, and to make matters worse they will probably outnumber us by a wide margin.’

  ‘Nothing he said made light of that,’ she responded. ‘And by his gesture alone, you must know that he worries for you. This resupply gives us a fighting chance.’