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

  Even Moss, standing beside Genist’s mount, thumb brushing his lips, breathed musingly, ‘Toc the Elder…’

  Chapter III

  And so Trake ascends.

  Who can say what influence this casts upon his brothers and sisters?

  First Heroes All. Shall they too ascend? Is now the time of savage uncivilized gods?

  Brutal gods for a depressingly brutal age?

  Tol Geth, Aesthete

  Darujhistan

  THE ROD AND SCEPTRE STOOD WITHIN THE SOUTH QUARTER OF the Outer Round of Li Heng. This address means nothing to those new to the city, but to any long-time resident it spelled one thing and one thing only: poverty. For Li Heng was a city of Rounds, or nested circular precincts. At its centre was set the Inner Focus, containing at its hub the Palace, and within the Palace, at its cynosure, the City Temple – once sanctified to the Protectress – and now, under Malazan administration, re-sanctified to the full pantheon of Quon Talian Gods, Heroes and Guardian Spirits. Surrounding the Inner Focus lay the Greater Intermediate Round, home to the ancient aristocrat families of Li Heng, the wealthier merchant houses and the government officials. Next came the Lesser Intermediate, wider yet. Here, the majority of city commerce was pursued, for Li Heng stood at the centre of Quon Tali, halfway between coasts astride the main trade artery connecting Unta with distant Tali province to the far west, and trade was the city’s lifeblood. Encircling the Lesser Intermediate was the Outer Round, the fourth and widest. Here stood the crowded tenements of the labourers, the manufacturies, the animal corrals and the ghettoes of Seti tribals and other outsiders.

  As to what might reside outside its legendary walls – it is telling that within the particular merchant cant of Li Heng there was not even a word for that. Banished, then, to the Outer Precinct, the Rod and Sceptre could not even claim the distinction of proximity to one of the two main gates of the city: the eastward-facing Gate of the Dawn and the westward-facing Gate of the Dusk. No, the inn rested within sight of the far less distinguished or profitable southward-facing Gate of the Mountains. At least, its owner and patrons could congratulate themselves, it was nowhere near the wretched northward-facing Gate of the Plains.

  The Rod and Sceptre was also by tradition a martial establishment. In the golden days – before the murder of the Blessed Protectress and the yoke of Malazan occupation – the inn hosted merchant bodyguards and elements of the Protectress’s own City Guard. Now, the inn quartered caravan guards and housed Malazan soldiery.

  The Malazan contingent currently billeted was of the Malazan Marines, 7th Army, 4th Division, a field-assembled provisional saboteur squad, the 11th, currently attached to the 4th Army Central Command, under Fist Rheena, military governor of Li Heng.

  The commander of the 11th saboteurs, field-promoted, was Captain Storo Matash, a Falaran native, of the island of Strike. Currently, Captain Storo was sitting at a table, drinking steadily while listening to a ranking saboteur, Shaky.

  ‘No sense pursuin’ it, Captain. No sense at all. Can’t be done, no way, never.’ Then Shaky raised both hands. ‘Well – maybe it could be done – if you worked real hard on it. Maybe then.’

  ‘That’s Sergeant, Corporal.’

  ‘Right, Cap’n.’

  Storo sighed, rubbed a palm over his brush-cut bristling hair. He looked to his two other saboteurs. ‘What have you two to say for yourselves? Hurl?’

  Hurl screwed up her eyes, thinking. ‘With the full resources of the city behind us we could have it done in a year.’

  ‘Sunny?’

  Sunny grimaced, tossed back the contents of his mug, coughed and wiped his mouth. ‘Useless project. No point. Wasn’t a moat to begin with anyway.’

  Storo glanced around the gloom of the low-roofed common room of the Rod and Sceptre. ‘The locals all say it was moat. Very proud of their ancient moat, these Hengans.’

  Sunny snorted his scorn. ‘Weren’t no moat.’

  ‘Then what was it?’

  Sunny was called Sunny because of the awfulness of his smiles, which were less like smiles than agonized, toothy glowers. He gave one of these strained leers. ‘Firstly, sure you got your Idryn River cutting right through the city, but it’s a muddy river comin’ a long way through a dry plain. Too uncertain to fill a moat – and would only silt it up anyway. Secondly, hey, Hurl – what’s the easiest way to raise the walls?’

  Hurl winked, and her smiled was much more pleasant. ‘Lower the ground.’

  ‘There you go. It was a ditch. A big-ass ditch. Not a pleasant moonlit froggy pool. A dusty rubbish-strewn bung-hole full of dead dogs ’n’ shit.’

  ‘OK! I get it.’ Storo signalled to the landlord’s wife, Estal, for another round. ‘You don’t have to elaborate.’

  Sunny frowned. ‘Weren’t elaborating. Me ’n’ Hurl and Shaky, we sank a pit to the bottom of the ditch. That’s what we found down there. Dead dogs ’n’ shit.’

  While Estal thumped down a flagon of ale, Storo eyed his crew of saboteurs. He hadn’t decided whether to be angered or relieved by the relentless maintenance of the games and habits that had seen them though years of combat in north Genabackis. If he shut his eyes, it was almost as if he were back in the campaigns and Sunny and Hurl were playing Stones with the Mott defenders, shouting their moves out to the night. He rubbed his forehead with a thumb and forefinger, took a long deep drink of the cheap Hengan ale. ‘So. We drop the moat – the ditch.’

  Shaky shook his head. ‘No way. Ah, that is, maybe not. Hurl’s got an idea.’

  Hugging herself, Hurl leaned towards the table, lowered her voice. ‘Sinking that pit.’ She stopped herself, glanced around the room. Perplexed, Storo followed her gaze: the place was empty but for a few drunken caravan guards, and Estal. Hurl leaned forward once again. ‘The ditch is just a big dump fulla wood and litter and rags and has all kinds a gaps. Holes. I say we fill it. But not with water. What say you, Cap’n?’

  Sunny smiled his ghastly smile.

  Four flagons of ale later, while Shaky, Hurl and Sunny sat playing cards and Storo drank, three Malazan soldiers entered the common room. Two sat at an empty table midway between the door and Storo’s table. The third, an officer, stalked up to the table and opened his arms wide. ‘Look who’s here.’ He turned to his companions. ‘It is him. Just like Rheena said. Ol’ Sergeant Storo back from Genabackis.’

  Shaky, Hurl and Sunny did not look from their cards. Storo squinted blearily up at the man. ‘Do I know you?’

  The officer used his boot to hook a chair from the table, sat. The pommels of twin duelling swords thrust forward under his armpits. His black hair hung curled in tight thin rat-tails tied off by bright twists of cloth; these he pushed back from his wide, tanned face. ‘No. Haven’t had the pleasure. Allow me to introduce myself. Harmin, Captain Harmin Els D’Shil, of Fist Rheena’s staff.’ He inclined his head in the ghost of a bow.

  Shaky, Hurl and Sunny glanced sidelong. Storo grunted his recognition. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Harmin’s smile was as smooth as Sunny’s was gnarled yet they seemed eerily akin. ‘Well, imagine my surprise – nay, my dismay – to learn that the hero of the north Genabackis campaigns had returned only to be digging dirt and piling rocks like a convicted criminal.’

  Shaky, Hurl and Sunny lowered their cards. Storo growled, ‘Hero?’ He yanked Sunny’s hand from the pouch at his side. ‘What do you mean, hero?’

  The bright focus of Harmin’s smile shifted to Sunny. ‘Surely your men have no doubt heard the story many times by now, yes?’ The smile returned like a bared blade to Storo. ‘How your Sergeant Storo here slew an Avowed of the Crimson Guard?’

  Hurl blew her hair from her sweaty grimed forehead, brought her arms down under the table to rest her hands near her belted knives. ‘Yeah. We’d heard. An’ that’s Captain, now, ah…Captain.’

  Harmin inclined his head to Hurl. ‘I didn’t believe it myself when I first heard it, of course. I thought it one of those wild stories you hear
of from the front.’ He crossed his arms, leaving his hands near the pommels of his swords. His smile on Storo revealed even more teeth. ‘You know the sort…lies woven by fame hounds…’

  Sunny lurched up from his chair only to be pulled down by Storo. Harmin, who had not moved, bestowed his smile once more on Sunny. Storo thumped his elbows to the table, rested his chin in his hands. ‘But you found out it was true.’

  Nodding, Harmin slowly uncrossed his arms. He took the cup from in front of Shaky, sniffed at it and set it down untasted. ‘Yes. Needless to say I was astonished. But Fist Rheena assures me of its veracity.’

  ‘So you have come to get a look at me and to hear how it happened.’

  ‘Yes, that. And to deliver a message.’ He raised a hand. ‘But please, do not misunderstand. My interest is not merely that of the common dumb gawping foot soldier. I have something of a connection to the Guard. As you can tell from my family name. The D’Avore family are – were – cousins of mine.’

  Storo topped up his cup and sat back with a long-suffering sigh. ‘All right. I’ll tell you all about it.’ Shaky, Hurl and Sunny all shot their commander surprised looks. Shaky quickly dumped out his own cup on to the straw-heaped floor then refilled it. Storo took a long drink, cleared his throat.

  ‘It was just outside Owndos, during the siege. My squad was assigned the objective of a tower overlooking the sea of that same name. Take it, or, failing that, destroy it to deny it to the warlord Brood. We were lucky ’cause we still had our cadre battle mage, Silk – who’s still with me now.’ Storo raised his voice. ‘Ain’t that so, Silk?’

  Harmin glanced around and jerked, startled. A slim, pale man now sat at the next table. He wore a fine dark silk shirt, vest, and trousers now faded and worn. He offered a mocking smile to Harmin who returned it through clenched teeth.

  Storo took another drink. ‘Silk scouted the tower, reported a sizeable enemy contingent occupied it: Free City soldiers, Barghast tribals and local townsmen militia. Seemed it offered a strategic view of surrounding forest and Owndos coastline. In any case, we weren’t concerned about the locals. We even had Barghast allies of our own – those boys will fight anyone, anywhere. No, the Lad’s push of things was that the tower was commanded by four of the Crimson Guard. Now, that was a pause. You know the old official policy – don’t engage the Guard unless you outnumber them five to one. We didn’t. So that night I sent in Silk and the boys to mine the tower. The next morning a patrol went out led by three of the Guard. That suited us. We sat pretty till they were long gone then we charged the compound. The plan was to hit fast and hard an’ drive them back into the tower then blow it. Sure enough, things sailed along fine. Once most of the defenders retreated to the tower, we blew it. The whole thing went up, came crashing down in a great blast of stone and dust. The remaining Free City soldiers an’ Barghast were just stupefied and we chased them off easily enough.

  ‘But then the fourth Guard came staggering out of the fire and wreckage – seemed she was an Avowed. She must’ve been on an upper floor when the blast went off so she didn’t get the worst of it. But dropping a four-floor stone tower on her was slowing her down some in any case. She wasn’t walking so good – maybe a broken hip – and one arm was all mangled. Our Barghast circled her and thrust her full of javelins and spears. Must’ve been near ten spears pinning her down on the ground but she was still squirmin’, pulling them out, one by one. That impressed the Barghast no end. Their shamaness called off her boys. Yelled something about spirits and pacts and made it clear they weren’t gonna have anything more to do with the Avowed. By this time she was sittin’ up. Only the javelins through her legs were holding her down.’

  Storo took a drink, raised and lowered his beefy shoulders. ‘So it was up to me. I charged in and though all she had with her was a knife I nearly got my leg sliced off for my trouble. I went down. She went back to tuggin’ at the javelins. Time was passing, so I limped over to the side of her bad arm and got a few good two-handed licks in. These slowed her down some even more and I was able to tag her head a few times. After that I could really step in and I managed to chop away until her head came away from her neck. And so she died.

  ‘Later someone told me her name: Sarafa Lenesh.’

  While Storo talked Harmin’s smile had melted away into an expression of disgust. He let out a low hissed breath. ‘So, you attacked a wounded woman. Cut her head off while she was pinned down.’

  Storo nodded. ‘That’s about the bare bones of it.’

  Harmin seemed at a loss for words; he shook his head in mute denial. ‘You are a barbarian. You destroyed something irreplaceable. Unique in all the world.’

  ‘They’re the goddamned enemy,’ Sunny growled.

  Harmin found his smile once more. He stood. ‘Thank you for the story, Storo. Though it does you no credit.’

  ‘The message?’ Storo asked, and took a drink.

  His eyes thinning to slits, Harmin pulled a slip of folded paper from his belt. He tossed it on to the table. ‘Fist Rheena requested I deliver this. It arrived through Imperial administrative channels.’ The smile quirked up. ‘Perhaps it’s a notice of retirement. One can always hope.’ After a shallow bow, he turned from the table. The two who had entered with him stood. Just short of the entrance, he paused as he caught sight of two men sitting to either side of the door. Both he knew by sight as the muscle of Storo’s under-strength command: Jalor, a Seven Cities tribesman, bearing a tightly trimmed and oiled beard that did little to disguise the scars crisscrossing his dark face; and a fellow named Rell, from Genabackis, slouched in his chair, his greasy black hair hanging down over his face. These two Harmin couldn’t be bothered to smile at, and chose to ignore. They returned the favour.

  Once Harmin left, Jalor and Rell crossed to the squad’s table. Silk caught Storo’s eye, glanced significantly to the door.

  Storo frowned a negative. ‘Let them go.’ He sat rubbing his fingers over the folded slip.

  ‘Do you think he read it?’ Shaky asked.

  ‘A’ course,’ said Sunny.

  Hurl blew the hair from her brow. ‘Why’d Rheena send him of all the garrison?’

  ‘She probably sent someone else,’ offered Silk, ‘but he stepped in.’

  Storo grunted his agreement. He opened the paper, stared for a very long time then crumpled it in his hand. He took a drink. His command exchanged glances. Sunny nudged Silk who shifted uncomfortably then finally asked, ‘So. What did it say?’

  Storo did not answer. He offered the slip to Shaky who took it and smoothed it out. He read aloud: ‘“Storo Matash, we regret to inform you that the Graven Heart sank in a storm off Gull Rocks.”’ Shaky looked up. ‘Did you know someone on board?’

  ‘No. It’s code. An old smuggler’s code shared by Strike, and Malaz, and Nap, and a few other isles. It’s an offer of a meeting from a man I knew when I was young. A friend of my father. A man I’d thought dead a long time ago.’

  Sometime later that night Hurl offered to the table, ‘Hey, that guy, Harmin, I think from now on we should call him Smiley.’

  The ruins of the shore temple were half-submerged in the waters west of Unta Bay. Its broken columns stood in the waves as mere barnacle-encrusted humps. Though an easy day’s ride from Unta, this shore was a deserted stretch of rearing cliff-sides home to no more than water-birds and sea otters. A short fat man in a dark ocean-blue cloak carefully picked his way down the treacherous turning footpath that traced a way to the base of the cliff.

  Reaching the rocky shore, he dabbed the sheen of sweat from his wide face then pulled a folding camp stool of wood and leather from under his cloak and sat with a weary sigh just short of the misting sea-spray.

  Fanning himself, the man addressed the surf: ‘Come now! This coyness achieves nothing.’

  Though the waves had been pounding the tumbled rocks at the base of the cliff, the surf stilled, subsiding. The water seemed almost to withdraw. The man cocked his head as if listening to the
splashing as one might a voice. And a voice spoke, though few else living would have understood it. ‘You compelled, Mallick?’ came the response sounding from the gurgle and murmur of the waves.

  Mallick Rel wiped spots of spray from his cloak. ‘Indeed. What news of the mercenaries?’

  ‘Their ships converge.’

  ‘And upon those ships – there are Avowed, yes?’

  ‘Yes. I sense their presence. What will you do, Mallick, when they come for you?’

  ‘They will not live long enough.’

  A chuckled response, ‘Perhaps it is you who will not live long enough.’

  ‘I have my guardians, and you have no idea what they are capable of.’

  ‘You are transparent to me, Mallick. It is you who has no idea of what your guardians are capable. I know this for should you have the slightest inkling you would have come begging for deliverance.’

  ‘Kellanved had his army of undead, the Imass.’

  ‘A common misconception – they never died. They were…preserved. Regardless, even they would not tolerate either them – or you.’

  ‘Fortunately, these Imass are no threat to anyone any longer.’

  The voice of splashing and whispering water was silent for a time, then came a wondering ‘How brief the memory of humans.’

  Mallick gave a languid wave. ‘Yes, yes. In any case, we were discussing the mercenaries. Do not attempt to deflect me.’

  ‘Of the Guard, their end has not yet been foreseen.’

  ‘Do not lie to your High Priest, Mael. It is only through the rituals of Jhistal that you yet have a presence here in the world.’

  The water stilled, smoothing to glass. A bulge rose swelling to a broad pillar of water. It wavered, fighting to lean forward towards the seated man, then burst in a great rushing crash. ‘And so the bindings hold,’ came the voice again. ‘Rituals so awful, Mallick, even Kellanved was revolted. Regrettable that some of you escaped.’