The flames reflected gold from the figure's armour. ‘My father, Hunchell, is too old for such long flights now, Shatterer. But he sends his continued loyalty and regards. I am first son, V'thell.’
‘Welcome to my humble island.’ The two clasped forearms.
‘Will this then be our marshalling point?’
‘Yes. The island is secure. It will serve as one of our depots and staging grounds.’
‘I understand.’ The Gold Moranth, come by all the distance from far northern Genabackis, regarded the man for a time in silence, the chitinous visor of his full helm unreadable.
‘Go ahead, ask it,’ the man ground out.
‘Very well. Why do you pursue this course? You risk – shattering – it all.’
‘We can't stand idly by any longer, V'thell. Everything's slipping away bit by bit. Everything we struggled to raise. She doesn't understand how the machine we built must run.’
‘Yet she had a hand in that building.’
The man's mouth clenched into a hard line. ‘Yeah, that's true. I didn't say it was easy.’ He waved the topic aside. ‘But what about the Silver. Are they with us?’
‘Yes. We can count on a flight of Silver quorl. Some Green are with us as well. The Black and the Red … well, we shall see. As for the Blue – they tender transport contracts with everyone. I suspect it is they who will come out ahead after all this.’
‘Ain't that always the way. Will you rest here?’
‘No, I must go immediately.’
‘Well, give my regards to your father. Tell him to begin moving materiel. Contract all the Blue vessels you can.’
V'thell inclined his armoured head. ‘Very well.’
The man watched as the Gold Moranth remounted. The wings of the insect quorl became a blur. He ducked his head against the dust and thrown sand, watched the creature rise and disappear into the night. After a time another figure emerged from the darkness. He wore a long dark cloak and hood.
‘Can we trust them?’
The man named Shatterer by the Moranth barked a laugh at that. ‘Yeah, so long as there remains a chance we might win. Then they will renegotiate. What of you?’
‘My loyalty? Or my news?’
Shatterer smiled thinly.
‘There are rumours of the return of the Crimson Guard.’
A derisive snort. ‘Every year you hear that. Especially with bad times. I wouldn't give that any weight.’
The cloaked man's hood rose, yet the absolute darkness within was unchanged. ‘Have you considered the possibility that they might actually return? There are, after all, names among them that echo like nightmares.’
‘There are nightmare names among us too.’
‘When you say us – whom do you mean? Dassem is gone. Kellanved and Dancer are gone. Who remains to face them?’
‘We've always beaten them.’
‘In the past, yes.’
Shatterer rubbed the back of his neck. ‘If you're lookin’ for a sure thing you've come to the wrong place. You toss your bones and the Twins decide.’
‘I'm not one to leave anything to chance.’
‘Everything's a chance. But if you haven't learned that by now then I suppose you never will.’
‘Why should I, when I leave nothing to chance?’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. I am convinced of this Moranth connection. I will report appropriately.’
‘Then do so.’
The cloaked figure inclined its head. ‘We will remain in touch through the usual channels.’
‘Yeah. Those.’
The man – or woman – strolled away into the night.
Shatterer watched the flames for a time, sighed, cracked his knuckles. Dealing with traitors always set his teeth on edge. Especially a Claw traitor. But then, he now fell within that same category as well. He remembered the first contacts with the Moranth and how he had crushed the torso armour of one in a bear hug. They insisted on that ridiculous name after that. Easier if they'd just call him Crust, or Urko.
The traitor Claw's worries returned to him and he recalled the image of Skinner striding across ravaged battlefields, shrugging off the worst anyone could throw at him and killing, killing. He shuddered. Hood help her should he show up again. But no, all analysis said she would simply send the entirety of the Claw lists at them until only the regulars remained. It might take hundreds but eventually superior numbers would tell.
In any case, they would act regardless. It was cruel and hard but they meant to win and this was their best chance this generation. In a way he felt sorry for her; she was caught in a nightmare of her own making – Abyss, she might even thank them for it. Yet he knew in the end she would accept it. Laseen understood exigencies. She'd always understood those.
* * *
‘It won't stand.’
‘Sure it will.’
‘No – not enough support on the right. It'll give on that side and bring the whole thing down.’
‘No, it won't. We packed it tight. There's enough counter-strain.’
The two Malazan marines, a man and a woman, sat on a heap of bricks outside Li Heng's east-facing Dawn Gate. They studied the towering outer arch of the massive gatehouse. To the north and south stretched the curtain walls of Li Heng's legendary ten man-heights of near-invincible defences.
A robed man edged his way out of the gate – a shadowed entrance broad enough to swallow four chariots side by side. He peered about, a hand shading his gaze, and spotted the two. He turned and bellowed something that the acoustics of the long tunnel echoed and magnified into an unintelligible roar. Another man came running out, raced up to the first and extended an umbrella over him. This one straightened his robes, adjusted his wide sleeves, and approached. The second kept pace, umbrella high.
‘You there – you two! Where is your commander?’
The two eyed one another. The woman, wearing a mangled leather cap, touched a finger to it. ‘Magistrate Ehrlann. What brings you out to the construction project you're in charge of? Bad news, I'd wager.’
Ehrlann dabbed a white silk handkerchief to his face, smiled thinly. ‘Your disrespect has long been noted, you, ah, engineers. Criminal conviction, I think, will see a due improvement in manners.’
‘Did you hear that, Sunny?’ said the woman. ‘We're engineers. But how are we gonna keep your walls built for you if you take us to court?’
‘In chains, I imagine,’ smiled the magistrate. ‘Your commander?’
‘Working.’
Ehrlann waved flies away. ‘Drunk, you mean. Jamaer! Switch!’
‘Switch what?’ asked Sunny.
‘Not you fools.’
With his free hand the umbrella-holder extended a stick tied at one end with a tuft of bhederin hair. Ehrlann took it and waved it before his face. ‘Don't bother yourselves. I see him now.’
Ehrlann marched off, stumbling over the loose tumbled brick and rock. Jamaer followed, umbrella held high.
The two eyed one another. ‘Should we go along?’ asked the female saboteur and she adjusted the leather cap on her hacked-short brown hair.
‘Storo might kill him. That'd look bad when we're in court.’
‘You're right.’
They followed.
Ehrlann had stopped at an awning made from a military cloak roped from the side of a towering block of limestone half-buried in the ground. A man was straightening out from under it, weaving, coughing, wiping his hands down the front of his stained loose jerkin.
The two engineers saluted crisply. ‘Captain Storo, sir!’
Storo shot them a dark look, swallowed and grimaced at what he tasted. ‘That's sergeant. What is it now, Ehrlann?’
‘I have come to demand the opening of Dawn Gate, sir. Demand it. Our builders tell us that restorations are long complete. They say the structure is now sound and that commercial access is long overdue.’
Storo scratched his sallow stubbled cheeks, shaded his eyes from the sun. ‘Would th
ose be the same builders the Fist ordered you to fire for turning a blind eye to the wall's dismantling?’
‘Mere nuisance pilfering over the years carried out by these undesirables.’ The magistrate waved his switch to the squatter camp spread out from both sides of the east road.
Storo squinted at the camp. ‘They live in tents, Ehrlann.’
‘Nevertheless, you can delay no longer. Work here is done. Your contract is over. Finished. If we must, the court will report to High Fist Anand that we no longer require the services of his military engineers and that the defences of Li Heng have been returned to their ancient bright glory.’
Sunlight shone on Ehrlann and he winced, snapping, ‘Higher, you fool!’
Jamaer raised the umbrella higher.
‘You can report all you like.’ Storo said. He crouched to retrieve a helmet from under the awning, pulled it on. ‘But the only report Anand will listen to is mine.’
Ehrlann dabbed at the sweat beading his face, took hold of the robes at his front. ‘Do not force the Court of Magistrates to bring formal charges, commander.’
Storo's gaze narrowed. ‘Such as?’
‘There have been unfortunate assaults upon citizens, commander. Harassment of officials in the course of their duties.’
Storo snorted. ‘If I were you, Ehrlann, I would not try to arrest any of my men. Jalor, for one, is a tribesman from Seven Cities. He wouldn't take to it. And Rell –’ Storo shook his head. ‘I'd hate to think of what he'd do. In any case, Fist Rheena wouldn't honour any of your civil writs.’
‘Yes. She would. The city garrison is not behind you, commander.’
‘Meaning you've bought them.’
‘Commander! I object to that language!’
‘Don't bother, Ehrlann. Hurl, Sunny … what's your opinion on the gate fortress, the tunnel, the arches?’
‘Good for fifty years,’ said Hurl.
‘It will fall – sooner than later,’ said Sunny.
‘There you go,’ Storo told Ehrlann.
The magistrate waved the switch before his face, eyed Storo. ‘Meaning … ?’
‘Meaning you have your gate. Open it to traffic tomorrow.’
The magistrate beamed, threw his arms wide as if he would embrace Storo. ‘Excellent, commander. I knew you would listen. All finished then. I must admit it has been an education dealing with you veterans – we do not see too many here in the interior. Tell me, just what was the name of those barbarian lands you conquered all to the glory of the Empress? Gangabaka? Bena-gagan?’
‘Genabackis,’ Storo sighed. ‘And we're not finished. Not yet.’
Ehrlann frowned warily. ‘I'm sorry, commander?’
‘That hill over there,’ Storo lifted his chin to the north.
‘Yes? Executioner's Hill?’
‘I want to take one man's height—’
‘Two,’ said Hurl.
‘Two man-heights off it.’
The switch stopped moving. ‘You are joking, commander.’ Ehrlann pointed the switch. ‘That is where we execute our criminals. That is where city justice is enacted. It is an ancient city tradition. You cannot interfere with that. It is simply impossible.’
‘It's not ancient tradition.’
‘Claims whom?’
‘My mage, Silk. He says it only goes back seventy years and that's good enough for me. In any case, you can strangle your starving poor elsewhere, Ehrlann. After you provide the labour to lower the profile of that hill we'll start on the moat.’
‘The moat? A moat? Where is that, pray?’
‘Right where you're standing.’ Storo picked up his weapon belt and dusty hauberk. ‘Good day, magistrate. Hurl, Sunny. I need a drink.’
Magistrate Ehrlann watched the veterans head to Dawn Gate. He peered down to the loose dirt, broken brick and trampled rubbish at his feet. Sunlight struck the top of his head and he flinched.
‘Jamaer! Umbrella!’
* * *
The fat man in ocean-blue robes walked Unta's street of Dragons deck readers, Wax Witches and Warren Seers – Diviner's Row – with the patient air of a beachcomber searching a deserted shore for lost treasure. Yet Diviner's Row was far from deserted. As the Imperial capital, Unta was the lodestone, the vortex, drawing to it all manner of talent – legitimate or not. Mages, practitioners of the various Warrens, but also that class of lesser ‘talents’, such as readers of the Dragons deck, soothsayers, fortune-tellers of all kinds, be they scholiasts of entrails or diviners of the patterns glimpsed in smoke, read in cracked burnt bone or spelled by tossed sticks.
Divination was the current Imperial fashion. As the day cooled and the blue sky darkened to purple, the Row seethed with crowds from all stations of life, each seeking a hint of – or protection against – Twin Oponn's capricious turns: the Lad's push, or the Lady's pull. Amid the jostling evening crowd charm-sellers touted the vitality of their clattering relics, icons and amulets. Stallkeepers hectored passersby.
‘Your fortune this night, gracious one!’
‘Chart the influences of the Many Realms upon your Path!’
‘The Mysteries of Ascension revealed, noble sir.’
‘A great many enemies oppose you.‘ The plump man in blue robes froze. He peered down at a dirty street-urchin just shorter than he. ‘You risk all,’ the youth continued, his eyes squeezed shut, ‘but for a prize beyond your imaginings.’ The man's brows climbed his seamed forehead and his thick lips tightened, then he threw back his head and guffawed. His laughter revealed teeth stained a fading green that rendered them dingy and ill-looking.
Of course!‘ he agreed. ‘But of course! The future you have right. A great talent is yours, lad.’ He mussed the youth's greasy hair then handed him a coin. Waving to the nearest stallkeeper, he called, ‘A great future I foretell for that bold one!’ then he continued on, leaving a confused foreteller of Dead Poliel's visitations squinting into the crowd.
Hawkers of Dragons decks thrust their wares at the man. He turned a tolerant eye upon all. The merits of each ancient velvet-wrapped stack of cards he queried until finally purchasing one at a greatly reduced sum due to sudden misfortune within the family that had held it for generations.
Passing a stall offering relics, invested jewellery and stacks of charms, he paused and returned. The man beside the cart straightened from his stool, noted the fat, expensively-robed man's gaze fixed upon a sheath of necklaces. He smiled knowingly. ‘Yes. You have a discriminating eye, noble sir.’ The vendor took down the knotted necklaces, offered them to the man who flinched away. ‘Note the links, sir, chains in miniature. And the pendants! Guaranteed slivers of bone from the very remains of the poor victims of that fiend Coltaine's death march.’ The fat man's eyes seemed to bulge in their sockets. He swallowed with difficulty. ‘My Lord is familiar with that sad episode?’
Mastering himself, Mallick Rel found his voice, croaked, ‘Yes.’
‘A most disgraceful tragedy, was it not?’
Mallick straightened his shoulders. His lips drew back from his stained teeth. ‘Yes. An awful failure. Hauntings of it ever return to me like waves.’
‘Thank the wisdom of the Empress in her call for all Quon to rise against the traitorous Wickans.’
‘Yes. Thank her.’
‘Then my Lord must have this relic – may we all learn from what it carries.’
Bowing, the vendor missed Mallick's eyes, deep within their pockets of fat, dart to him with a strange intensity. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A lesson ever to be heeded.’ Then he smiled beatifically. ‘Of course I shall purchase your excellent relic – and is that a charm to deflect Hood's eternal hunger I see next to it?’
*
As the evening darkened into night and moths and bats came out, servants lit lanterns outside the shops of the more enduring fortunetellers and deck-readers. Mallick entered the premises of one Lady Batevari. A recent arrival in the capital herself, Lady Batevari had, in a short space of time, established a formidable reputation as a most
profound sensitive to the hints and future patterns to be glimpsed within the controlling influences of the Warrens. Known throughout the streets as the High Priestess of the Queen of Dreams, her official position within the cult remained uncertain since she and the Grand Temple on God's Round determinedly ignored each other. Some dismissed her as a charlatan, citing her claim to be from Darujhistan where no one who had ever been there could remember hearing her name mentioned. Others named her the true practitioner of the cult and pointed to her record of undeniably accurate prophecies and predictions. Both sides of the debate noted Mallick Rel's devotion as proof positive of their position.
Return of the Crimson Guard: A Novel of the Malazan Empire Page 9