The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire)

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘Close now,’ someone whispered behind. Kyle could only grunt an acknowledgement. ‘Right,’ the voice warned.

  ‘The fourth ship?’ he stammered.

  ‘Hood kiss that. It’s a ship ain’t it? Take it! Sharpish, turn. There, reach up.’

  Kyle raised his numb arm, found slimy cold timbers. ‘How…?’

  ‘A rope ladder ahead.’

  He bumped his way forward and managed to entangle his arm in the ladder and slowly, laboriously, dragged himself up the first few wood rungs. Hands from above heaved him up the rest of the way and he lay on the warm deck gasping. ‘There’s another – help him.’

  The dark shape peered down over the side. ‘There’s no one there,’ and the man padded off silent.

  The ship had already been taken. Kyle warmed himself at coals simmering in an iron brazier at mid-deck. Two Guardsmen hurried about, clearing the ship’s deck. ‘We’re leaving now?’ Kyle asked of one.

  This one paused, eyed him up and down. ‘A new hand, hey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who swore you in?’

  ‘Stoop.’

  This fellow nodded, impressed by the name. Kyle wondered what could possibly be impressive about the broken-down one-handed saboteur.

  ‘Know ships?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you are now officially a marine. Scrounge armour and weapons – especially missile weapons. Ready for blockade.’

  ‘Blockade?’

  ‘Aye. We’ll need all their ships.’

  Kyle forced down a laugh of disbelief. ‘But that’s an entire city!’

  The Guardsman’s smile shone bright in the dark. ‘Just their best ships then.’ The smile disappeared. ‘Below, collect equipment.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Kyle expected blood-spattered slaughter belowdecks and so descended the set of steep stairs slowly. But what he found disturbed him in a far worse way; all the holds and bunk-lined ways he explored he found completely empty. Not one person, dead or alive. Where was everyone? What had happened? He could find no arms or armour anywhere.

  The rattling of metal sounded from sternward. Kyle readied his tulwar and edged forward. The narrow corridor ended at a room cramped by benches and tables. An open door led further to the stern. The noise of metal rattling continued. Kyle peeked in to see the back of a man, barefoot, in a wet shirt and trousers, struggling with a closed and chained cabinet door.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ the man said in Talian without turning around. Kyle wondered how he could have possibly known he was here. The noise of the vessel’s rocking and creaking had covered his approach, he was sure.

  ‘Aye.’

  More rattling, then the chains fell from the door. ‘Ha!’ The man pulled open the metal-bolted and barred door. Kyle glimpsed racks of spears and bows and swords within.

  ‘Help me bring these up.’

  ‘Where is everyone? The crew, I mean.’

  The Guardsman began unlocking the racks. Kyle now saw that he carried an immense ring of keys. ‘Merchants,’ the man sighed. ‘They want weapons locked away yet they expect to be protected at all times.’ His thick black hair, hacked short, shone like wet fur and the lines of his face appeared ready to creep up into a constant grin. ‘The crew? Just a skeleton watch. Some fought, some dived overboard.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’

  The man stopped short, gave an exaggerated frown then returned to his grin. ‘The plan? Ah, you’re a new hand. Capture the ships.’

  ‘Right. Capture ships.’

  Thunder rolled over and through the vessel, a burst from the middle distance. Kyle frowned, puzzled – it was a clear night. The Guardsman’s grin turned eager. ‘It’s started. Let’s go.’ He collected an armful of weapons.

  A faint orange glow flickered over the deck. Flames now engulfed the Kurzan waterfront. While Kyle watched, a fresh burst of yellow and white flame rocked one harbour tower. It hunched, then, with an awful slow grace, toppled sideways, flattening as it went. More thunder rolled up the inlet.

  ‘Something’s got Smoky all in a froth,’ murmured the Guardsman.

  ‘What about the ships?’

  ‘Naw. Don’t worry about them. Cowl would murder him.’

  ‘They’re on their way!’ someone shouted from the bows.

  The Guardsman laughed. ‘You see? All they needed was a little encouragement.’

  ‘And just what do we do when they get here?’ Kyle asked.

  Surprised, the mercenary looked to Kyle. ‘Sorry. I keep forgetting. It’s hard for us old-timers. My name is Cole. You?’

  ‘Kyle. Are you – Avowed?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cole gestured to two others with him. ‘I’ll hold the deck. You two flank me. You,’ he pointed to Kyle, ‘can you use a bow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Get up on the foredeck with the man there – follow his orders.’

  ‘Aye, aye.’ Kyle gathered all the arrow sheaths he could hold.

  The man at the raised bow deck was pale, skinny and obviously freezing cold as he stood in a soaked linen shirt and hide trousers hugging himself and stamping his feet.

  ‘You an archer?’ the Guardsman asked Kyle in accented Talian.

  ‘I can shoot.’

  ‘OK. Try out those. Find one you like.’

  Kyle strung one bow, took a test shot out into the darkness. Weak, he judged, but true. ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘I’ll pick out targets. You hit them.’

  ‘OK.’ To get a better feel for the bow, Kyle shot more arrows into the dark.

  ‘You a local recruit?’ the man asked.

  ‘Yes. Kyle. You?’

  ‘Parsell, Lurgman Parsell. Genabackis.’ Distracted, the man peered out over the dark waves of the inlet glimmering with reflected flames. ‘Less than one league now,’ he called to mid-ship.

  ‘I mark them,’ Cole answered.

  Kyle squinted out over the calm waters. He could barely discern dark shapes approaching, pale lines at their bows, let alone any possible target. How was he to hit anything? ‘Ah, there’s a problem. I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘You can’t—’ Lurgman sighed, pulled a leather pouch from under his shirt, took out a slip of oiled cloth. ‘There might be enough left on this, try it.’

  ‘What do I do with it?’

  ‘You rub it over your eyes. Open, mind you – they have to be open.’

  ‘Doesn’t that hurt?’

  ‘Like a rasp.’

  Kyle studied the parchment, dubious. ‘Do I have to?’

  The thump of distant crossbows and catapults echoed across the inlet. Incendiaries shot high up into the night, arced to reveal scores of vessels bearing down upon them.

  ‘No choice now.’

  Kyle opened one eye wide and pressed the cloth to it then flinched, snarling and cursing as acid ate at his eye. ‘Wind take you! Gods, man! Gods!’

  ‘The other one – quick.’

  Cole roared, ‘Get rid of those two war-galleys! We don’t want them.’

  ‘Aye, aye.’

  Blinking, eyes watering, Kyle straightened to a near monochrome half-light of blindingly bright flames, searing stars in the night sky, and a clear vision of ships, all under oar, making slow progress towards them. Distantly, the clash of battle sounded as ship met ship.

  Lurgman was grunting and hissing his effort, eyes shut, hands held out before him, and the hair on Kyle’s neck and arms tingled as he realized he stood with a mage, possibly another Avowed.

  ‘Are they in range?’ Lurgman ground through clenched teeth.

  The nearest vessels, two broad-bellied cargo ships, had been attempting to pass to either side of their ship. Both had lost all headway and rocked as if rudderless. The decks of both swarmed with soldiers. Kyle was surprised to see how all their oars were warped and curled – utterly useless.

  ‘Now, yes.’

  Arrows pelted down and Kyle hunched low for cover behind the gunwale. Lurgman didn’t move. ‘Stand up.
We won’t get hit.’ Then he flinched as if slapped. ‘’Ware a mage!’ he bellowed.

  At that moment a ball of actinic-bright energy burst alight on deck. It spun about randomly, striking a mast with a flash then ricocheting to a barrel that it consumed in a deafening eruption.

  ‘Bring that man down!’ Cole bellowed, outraged.

  ‘Aye,’ Lurgman answered. He scanned the ships.

  Grapnels struck the gunwales. The cargo ships drew closer, one to either side. Beyond, two long and low war-galleys foundered in the relatively calm waters, sinking for no reason Kyle could see. Soldiers jammed the decks. They wrestled frantically with their armour. Some fell overboard to disappear instantly. For the first time Kyle felt safe in his thin leathers.

  ‘There!’ Lurgman shouted, catching Kyle’s arm. ‘The stern. The old fellow in the dark hat like a hood. Gold at his neck.’ Kyle spotted him, sighted and loosed. The arrow hung in the dark as if suspended then took the throat of a man at the mage’s side. His gaze darted to Kyle, narrowed to luminous slits. His hands rose, gestured. Gold and jewellery glittered at the fingers.

  ‘’Ware your back,’ someone called behind Kyle who spun to see a darkening and swirling like oil-smoke at the far side of the bow deck.

  ‘Lurgman!’ he warned.

  The mage turned and gaped. ‘Hood’s curse! Cole! A summoning!’

  Kyle snapped a glimpse to the deck to see Cole and his two flankers encircled by a sea of Kurzan soldiery.

  The mage pushed Kyle forward. ‘Buy me time. Time!’

  A scaled and clawed foot emerged from the Warren portal. A long face, scaled olive-green like that of an insect, peered out. Kyle pressed the blade of his tulwar to his lips. Wind save me! He edged forward, hunched to receive heavy blows.

  The demon, or sending, or whatever it was, reached out as if to simply grasp Kyle in one taloned hand and so he swung. The tulwar severed the forearm sending the hand spinning out overboard. The fiend shrieked. A hot stream of ichor gushed over Kyle who jerked back, stung, blinking to clear his eyes.

  Kurzan soldiers appeared at the stairs up from the mid-deck, took in the battle scene at the upper deck, and flinched away.

  The fiend grasped the end of his forearm. Smoke fumed from the wound. It withdrew its hand revealing a hardened, cauterized stump. Its jaws moved, crackling and snapping, and somehow Kyle understood the words: ‘Who are you to have done this?’

  ‘Just a soldier,’ he answered because he himself had no idea what had just happened.

  Arrows stormed down around the vessel, deflected somehow. Flames spread across the waves engulfing a ship as it rammed the vessel next to Kyle’s. The fiend straightened. ‘I was not forewarned that one of your stature awaited. But, so be it. Let us test our mettle, you and I.’

  Then, and Kyle could only understand it this way, the fiend melted. Its scaled keratin or bone skeleton, or armour, melted and ran, buckling and twisting. It fell to its knees and before its skull collapsed like heated wax Kyle thought he saw horror and astonishment in its black eyes.

  Kyle retreated to the ship’s side, saw Lurgman slumped, one arm hooked over the gunwale. He helped the mage up. ‘How did you do that?’ he whispered, awed.

  ‘I could very well ask you the same question,’ the mage answered, his voice ragged. Blood ran from his nose and blotched his eyes carmine. Those eyes narrowed and Lurgman turned to glare out over the water. Kyle looked – men now supported the Kurzan mage. His hat was gone, his bald head shining.

  ‘So, it’s going to be the hard way is it?’ Lurgman growled beneath his breath. ‘Can you throw better than you shoot?’

  ‘From this distance, yes.’

  ‘Then throw this.’ The mage passed Kyle a small ball like a slingstone. Kyle hefted it, nodded. He aimed, reached back and threw. The stone landed, unseen, somewhere near the mage. While Kyle watched, the men at the stern deck suddenly clutched at their faces. Their mouths gaped into dark ovals. Their eyes bulged. Clawed fingers gouged into flesh and all crowding the stern of the vessel fell. The mage toppled among them. Kyle turned away, feeling his stomach rising into his throat. Lurgman eased himself down to sit with his back to the ship’s side.

  Queasy, his limbs quivering with unspent energy, Kyle threw himself down beside the man. ‘So this is the way you Avowed finish your arguments.’

  ‘Avowed? Me? Gods no. I’m not in their rank. Anyway, I’m from Genabackis. No Avowed are from Genabackis.’

  Kurzan soldiers edged warily up the stairs. Lurgman raised a menacing hand to them and they flinched away. ‘No, I was just a healer in Cat when the Malazans invaded. A Bone Mage we’re called back there. Was a damned good one too. I healed breaks, straightened bones, cleaned infections. So, as you saw, I’m really not much of a battle mage.’

  ‘Could’ve fooled me.’

  The clash of steel and thump and rattle of armour subsided below.

  Lurgman eyed Kyle sidelong. ‘What of you? What’s the story on that blade?’

  Kyle shrugged. ‘Smoky inscribed it, if that’s what you mean.’

  Cole appeared at the top of one stairway; his tunic hung in bloody shreds about his waist. Shallow cuts crisscrossed his arms and chest. Sweat ran from his soaked hair. He peered around the bow, frowned his surprise. ‘I thought a demon ate you two.’

  ‘We got lucky,’ said Lurgman.

  ‘Well, get down here, Twisty. My flankers need healing and more ships are coming.’ He thumped back down the stairs.

  Kyle helped Lurgman to his feet. ‘Twisty?’

  The mage’s mouth curled wryly. ‘Twisty. They insist on calling me Twisty.’

  At night in a barren stone valley a man sat wrapped in a thick cloak next to a roaring bonfire. The firelight flickered against surrounding stone cliffs. He sat listening to the distant roar of ocean surf, tossed sticks into the blaze. Presently, a whirring noise echoed about the valley and the man stood, squinted into the night sky.

  A winged insect much like a giant dragonfly descended to land amid the brush and rock to one side. An armoured figure slowly and stiffly dismounted.

  Cloak cast aside, the man approached. His arms hung at his sides, long and thick and knotted with muscle. His sun-browned and aged face wrinkled in pleasure. Grinning, he called, ‘You’re late, Hunchell. But it does my heart good to see you again.’

  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 matériel. 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.’