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

  ‘Haven’t faced a stand-up fight recently,’ Coots said. ‘We prefer to avoid them.’

  Badlands pulled his helmet on. ‘Yeah. They can get you killed.’

  Kyle almost burst out laughing: the helmet looked two sizes too small on the hairy burly fellow, like a bull wearing a pot. After mastering himself Kyle reflected that he mustn’t look much better in his hand-me-down mismatched armour. He drew his tulwar, examined its edge – as bright and keen as the day Smoky inscribed it. Nothing seemed able to mar it. He turned to Ereko who sat cross-legged with no weapon in sight.

  ‘Where’s your spear?’

  The Thel Akai looked up and in his golden eyes something flashed that stabbed Kyle to his heart before it was hidden away and the familiar wintry smile returned to his lips. ‘Not here, Kyle. Not in my homeland.’

  The brothers continued fussing with their equipment. Stalker checked the positioning of more weapons than Kyle had even guessed he might be carrying. He wondered what they were waiting for then, then Traveller re-entered the tent, and he understood.

  The man examined each of them in turn, his face dark with churning emotions Kyle couldn’t name, a kind of impatient anger, even disgust. The lines that bracketed his mouth slashed down like cuts. He nodded his approval and the Lost brothers jumped to the tent flap, flanking it with hands on their weapons. Stalker ducked out first. Traveller exited, then Kyle and Ereko. The brothers brought up the rear.

  Jhest awaited them down the beach near the Kite. He stood next to a collection of bundled fruits, foodstuffs and wooden casks that Kyle presumed held water. Also present were the tall soldiers, positioned in a wide semicircle. They wore no uniforms or colours, only a strange sort of armour made from a mosaic of small stones, each a slightly differing shade of green, varying from dark sea-blue-green to a pale yellow-olive. Helms completely enclosed their faces and gauntlets their hands – all of the same shimmering mosaic surface. The weapons at their waists were hidden in wooden sheaths clasped in worked bronze, but from the shape they appeared curved and perhaps flaring out toward the point.

  Jhest bowed. ‘I trust you slept well and are refreshed. Please do not be alarmed by the presence of our soldiers. They are here to help load your vessel. You must find them somewhat familiar, yes? They are inspired by the many insights gained by those Malazan allies, the Moranth.’

  ‘Yes,’ Traveller answered curtly. ‘Thank you for the food and water. We will be leaving now.’

  ‘If you must. But I must ask that you reconsider your goal.’

  Traveller, who had bent to a cask, straightened to face Jhest. ‘Yes?’ Ereko picked up two casks, one under each arm, and began loading the Kite. Kyle and the Lost brothers all spread out around Traveller.

  ‘You really do not expect to succeed, do you? It is impossible. You would only be throwing away your existence in a futile gesture. Your presumption is beyond arrogance. It is a sad waste.’

  Traveller was silent for some time. Kyle, his back to them and eyes fixed on the soldiers, could only hear their exchange. He adjusted his footing – the sand was strangely loose and yielding now, unlike earlier when they had landed the Kite. Traveller finally answered, his voice so low Kyle barely caught it, ‘Do not come between me and my vengeance, Jhest. My response will be felt not just by you, but by all those who speak with you as well – and who are no doubt listening at this very moment. Think on that!’ he suddenly yelled, startling Kyle.

  ‘That is the question, is it not?’ Jhest answered, his voice still eerily flat, unperturbed. ‘Are we interposing ourselves when said goal is then abandoned? An interesting philosophical point, yes? Room enough, perhaps, for the risk.’

  ‘Finished,’ Ereko called. Kyle and Stalker, on one side, began edging backwards.

  ‘You risk far more than you comprehend,’ Traveller said, sounding almost regretful.

  ‘It would not be a risk otherwise.’

  Beneath Kyle’s sandals the beach shook, churning. A hissing flow of sands sank his feet to the calves. He jumped, staggering, to keep his footing. A shocked yell from Ereko snapped his head around. Traveller was gone. Kyle gaped at Ereko who stared at the empty sand.

  ‘No,’ the giant mouthed, appalled.

  ‘You fools!’ the giant roared at Jhest. ‘You have no idea who – what – you are interfering with!’

  ‘What may, or may not, happen far away in another land is of no interest to us,’ said the mage and he gestured. As one, weapons slid from the soldiers’ wooden and leather sheaths. Ereko sank to his knees, pressed his hands to the sands.

  ‘Get him on board,’ Stalker snarled, drawing his curved blade. Kyle grasped an arm, but he might as well have been pulling at a tree trunk. The giant dug at the yielding sand, yanking free of Kyle’s grip.

  ‘You really did not think we would be so foolish as to cross swords with him, did you?’ Jhest said – his voice still as flat as when they exchanged pleasantries last night.

  ‘Oh, just kill the bastard, will you?’ Stalker said over his shoulder. Kyle ignored him, a hand at Ereko’s arm.

  ‘We must go – please!’

  The soldiers advanced, swinging, and the Lost cousins parried once, twice, holding their ground, ripostes gouging scatterings of the small stones to the sands.

  Jhest’s bland smile drew down and his smooth brow furrowed. ‘What is this?’ he murmured.

  Ereko raised his head and Kyle was shocked by the rage roiling in his molten eyes. ‘You and your cabal have erred, Jhest. You should not have chosen D’riss. Any Warren but that. For you seem to have forgotten who, in truth, I am.’

  ‘You are Thel Akai, yes. An ancient race of this land – a useless remnant of a sad past.’

  ‘And who were we before we named ourselves, before any other sentient kind arose? Our forebears were the children of the earth!’

  ‘Kyle!’ A yell from Stalker. One of the soldiers had caught Badlands in a bearhug. The man stitched the armoured giant in thrusts of his long-knives but to no visible effect. Kyle darted forward, drawing. He swung at a shoulder and the tulwar slid through the stones with a grating screech. The arm hung half-dismembered, accompanied by a gout of black blood as thick as tar. Badlands fell to the sand and lay stunned. Kyle stared. He was so amazed that a ponderous attack from another of the armoured giants almost decapitated him. He ducked, swung two-handed at the leading leg and severed it at the knee. The soldier collapsed to lie flailing in the sands like an upturned beetle.

  ‘What? How is this?’ Jhest gaped his disbelief.

  Kyle leapt to one of three soldiers Stalker had kept at bay, severing an arm at the elbow and crippling a leg on the backswing.

  ‘No!’ Jhest bellowed. ‘You are not of the Isturé!’

  Unhesitating, Kyle continued hacking the lumbering giants – none of whom uttered a sound or even flinched from their attack though it was obvious they were doomed. Once down, the brothers finished them off.

  After the last, Kyle spun on Jhest. He was exhausted, his arms numb and tingling from the jarring impacts of swings that he’d had to give every ounce of his strength. The Jacuruku mage eyed him in turn. ‘You should not have been able to do that,’ he said flatly. ‘It is therefore the blade. Allow me to examine it.’

  ‘Allow me to kill him,’ Stalker said to Kyle, panting his own weariness.

  ‘Not yet.’ He crouched beside Ereko who still knelt on his hands and knees, his arms sunk to his elbows. ‘What should we do?’ he asked, pleading.

  Ereko did not answer. His eyes were screwed shut, his teeth clenched, lips drawn back in a rictus of effort. ‘Almost,’ he hissed on a breath. ‘Almost…’

  Jhest clapped his hands, barking an order. Stalker raised his sword. ‘Wait!’ Kyle yelled.

  ‘Why is this shit still alive?’ Stalker demanded.

  ‘Damn right,’ Badlands added.

  ‘Because we may need him.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To retrieve Traveller.’

  Hesitating,
Stalker slammed home his blade. ‘Damn the Dark Hunter!’

  Jhest, however, appeared utterly unconcerned. His gaze was directed far off to the jungle-line beyond. A one-sided smile crooked up his thick lips. Kyle, a cold presentiment shivering his flesh, slowly turned following the mage’s gaze.

  ‘Trouble,’ Coots said laconically, spitting.

  Movement shivered the treeline all up and down the beachfront for as far as Kyle could see in either direction. Armoured soldiers identical to those dismembered around them stepped forth. Tens, hundreds. ‘Ereko!’

  But still enmeshed in his efforts the giant did not answer.

  ‘You have no choice but to abandon him,’ Jhest observed blandly.

  Snarling, Stalker drew and thrust in one movement. The mage did not flinch. Instead, he looked down calmly at the sword impaling his abdomen and cocked one brow. ‘You will find me a great deal more difficult to kill than my servants.’

  Stalker stepped back. His blade sucked free, glistening with a clear, thick ichor. ‘Kyle…’

  ‘Wait!’

  Ereko, grunting his effort, was withdrawing his arms from the sands. His hands came free, clasped in a shared wristlock with another’s arm – Traveller’s. Up and down the shore, the beach shuddered, rippling beneath everyone. Even the mage, Jhest, was rocked. ‘No!’ he bellowed. ‘Impossible!’

  Beneath Ereko was revealed a gap, a wound into darkness. Sands disappeared, sucked in a growing vortex that appeared to lead to…dark nothingness. Kyle leaned forward to lend a hand.

  ‘No!’ Ereko gasped. ‘It will take you.’

  Traveller’s other hand appeared, pushed down against the surface. Gasping, Ereko straightened his legs, drawing the man free. The gaping void disappeared with an explosion like the burst of a Moranth munition. The report of its closure echoed from the tree-line. Traveller lay supine while Ereko straightened, drawing in great bellowing breaths.

  ‘They’re still comin’,’ Coots drawled into the silence.

  The swordsman pushed himself to his feet. Jhest watched, his face eager, almost avid, lustful. ‘You live,’ he breathed, awed.

  Traveller rolled his shoulders, wincing. ‘My life is now my own, magus. It can no longer be taken by anyone.’

  The statement seemed to transport the mage. His eyes lit up and open glee twisted his mouth into a frog-like leer. ‘Then it is true! It can be done!’

  Traveller seemed merely to gesture and the mage’s head flew from his shoulders to roll to the sands. ‘Not by you.’ He sheathed his sword.

  ‘Time to run away,’ Coots suggested.

  Blinking, Kyle stared at the headless torso of the mage that remained standing, immobile. He had the unnerving impression that should he touch it a hand would leap up to grab him. Glancing away he saw the army of armoured soldiers almost within reach. ‘Run!’ They leaned their shoulders to the Kite, pushed it out into the surf. The Lost brothers pulled themselves in. Ereko, Kyle saw, glanced back and cursed, slogging away. Traveller had remained on the shore.

  Cursing as well, Kyle threw himself back into the surf. When he arrived Ereko was pleading with the swordsman. ‘It is of no use!’

  ‘Go,’ Traveller said. ‘I will deal with all of these and their masters as well.’

  ‘There is no need!’ Ereko was fairly weeping.

  ‘They came between myself and my vengeance.’

  ‘Traveller!’ Kyle called sharply.

  The dark-skinned swordsman pulled his gaze from the relentless advance of the soldiers. He glanced to Kyle, puzzled, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your vengeance is elsewhere, isn’t it?’

  A hand rose from his sword grip to massage his brow. He clenched his eyes shut, pinching them.

  ‘Well?’

  The front ranks of soldiers met and trampled the body of Jhest. They drew their weapons in a clash of iron that echoed all up and down the treeline. Traveller allowed Ereko to drag him backwards into the surf. ‘Yes. Elsewhere…’ he murmured, sounding confused.

  The waves buoyed them, darkening Traveller’s leathers. Ereko continued pulling the man backwards. Kyle forced himself out against the waves. Glancing back, his chest clenched at the sight of the statue-like soldiers marching on, not even hesitating, to push into the surf. ‘Don’t stop!’

  The cousins reached for them over the side of the Kite. Ereko slapped their hands aside. ‘Trim the sail!’

  Springing up, Kyle grasped hold of a rope. Ereko had an arm around Traveller who still held his head, his eyes closed. The sail snapped, filling. The Kite pulled on Kyle. Behind them the soldiers marched on, disappearing beneath the waves rank after rank. Hanging from the side, Kyle could not help but raise his legs as tightly as he could from the water.

  Impatient strikes on the tunnel wall next to his alcove brought Ho from his meal of stewed vegetables and unleavened bread. He swept aside the rag hanging across the opening, a retort on his lips, to meet no one. Peering down he found the bent double shape of Su, an aged Wickan witch whom gossip in the tunnels had as once member of the highest circles of tribal councils. ‘What is it, Su?’

  She closed her dark knotted hands on a walking stick no longer than his foreleg. Her fingers were twisted by the swelling of the joints that afflicts the aged – those who cannot afford the Denul treatments or have access to them – and she cocked her head to examine him with one eye black and beady like the proverbial crow’s. ‘Just thought you might want to know. They caught those two newcomers. The Malazan spies. Caught them poking around down at the excavation. I do believe Yath intends to kill them.’

  Ho started, shocked. ‘Kill them? How in Togg’s teats is he to manage that? Talk them to death?’

  A cackle. ‘Ha! That’s a good one. I don’t know how. But he does intend to introduce them to our guest down below.’

  Introduce them? Sweet Soliel, no. Who knows what might become of that? ‘I’ll get my things. Many thanks, Su.’

  ‘Oh, I’m coming with you.’

  At the tunnel he paused, pulled on his jerkin and sandals. ‘I’m rather in a hurry.’

  The Wickan witch was tapping her way along the uneven tunnel. She waved a hand contemptuously. ‘Faugh! There’s no rush. You know how these things go. Everyone has a stick to throw on to the fire. They’ll be talking through the night watch.’

  They came to the broad main gallery and Ho was surprised to find it nearly deserted. ‘Where is everyone?’

  Su jabbed her stick to the beaten earth floor. ‘Didn’t I just tell you, fool? They’re down below!’

  Slowly walking along, down a side gallery, Ho tucked his hands into the sash he used to hold up his old worn pantaloons, so loose after he’d lost so much weight. ‘And no one came to tell me…’

  ‘I came! Thank you very much!’

  ‘Other than you, Su.’

  She leaned heavily on her stick, a bit out of breath. ‘Poor Ho. You really didn’t think that you could simply stand aside, did you? Yath has been whispering against you for years! Undermining you constantly! Haven’t you noticed?’

  A shrug. ‘No…’

  ‘Bah! You blind idiot! Not much of an infighter, are you…’ She sighed. ‘Ah well, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I suppose I’ll just have to work with the material the Gods have mockingly cursed me with.’

  Ho stopped short. ‘Your innuendo and vague pronouncements might impress the others, Su, but I have no time for them.’ The witch caught up with him, peered aside.

  ‘Oho! Some spirit! There’s one segment of spine left in there after all!’

  Ho refrained from commenting that she, of all people, should not talk about spines. He collected a full lamp from a nearby alcove and lit it from another, then crossed to a steeply sloped side tunnel complete with guide-rope. He led while Su huffed and puffed her way down behind. Small stones they kicked loose bounced and rattled down the slope until so distant their noise was lost in the dark. Hot, humid air wafted up the tunnel in a steady stream, licking at the lamp flame. �
��All right,’ Ho finally announced, ‘what did you mean by that comment?’

  A cackle from the dark above. ‘Ha! Takes you longer than anyone to admit you’re human just like the rest of us, doesn’t it? Makes perfect sense! Ha!’

  Ho slowed his descent. Was the hag merely casting darts into the dark? Yet every one falls just that degree of uncomfortably close…‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  The stick echoed from the dirt behind. ‘Oh, come, come! The ore inhibits any new castings but the old remain! I…smell…you, Ho.’

  Queen, no. He froze. ‘Unkind, Su. Precious little water down here, after all.’

  The crone’s long face loomed into the guttering lamplight. The flame danced in her black eyes; she leered conspiratorially. ‘I smell the old ritual on you, magus. The forbidden one. How did you manage it? Everyone thinks it lost.’

  And so it must remain. He pulled away, descending. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Very well! Be that way. It seems trust is in as short a supply down here as initiative. I don’t begrudge you your caution. But you could end the farce below should you wish. Just bring forth a fraction of what sleeps within, magus. I believe it is possible despite the ore.’

  Possible! Aye, it may well be possible – bringing madness with it! And I have a strong aversion to madness, witch. Very strong.

  After a long gentle curve and another long descent the narrow tunnel met a natural cavern, its floor levelled by dirt that Ho knew had been excavated from elsewhere further within. Its walls rose serried like the teeth of a comb, climbing in teardrop shape to an apex lost in the dark. A knot of men and women, a selection of the Pit’s inmates, filled the floor. Lamps on tall poles lit the gathering in a dim gold light. Without slowing down Su pushed her way through the crowd, elbows jabbing and stick poking. ‘Out of the way, fools!’ she hissed.