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)

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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) Page 150

by Ian C. Esslemont


  ‘So who were they?’ she asked Blues.

  ‘Some country called Jasston.’ He pointed south. ‘That’s their shore.’

  ‘And the north?’ The coast to the north was dark, and not once had she seen a fire or a settlement.

  ‘Some land called Remnant Isle. No one lives there. Supposed to be haunted.’

  Shell saw that the figurehead of the white woman was now gone, as was the gleaming brass teapot: secreted away for the next ‘inspection’. She frowned then and wiped her hands on her thighs, but the problem was her trousers were as dirty as her hands. ‘And the youth? What will happen?’

  Blues’ face seemed even darker than usual. ‘Orzu says almost everyone taken prisoner in all these lands ends up on the wall, sold to the Korelri.’

  The wall and its insatiable thirst for blood. And Bars was on it. Had he fallen? No. Not him. Yet they could die – all of them. They were of the Avowed, yes, but they could still drown or be hacked to pieces. Could he be dead already? Their mission a failure?

  A hardening in her chest told Shell that should that be the case, these Korelri Stormguard might find themselves swept from their own Hood-damned wall.

  The Sea-Folk untied the lines securing the boats. Blues waved farewell. The flotilla idled, tillers and oars used only to hold steady. Yet they were moving. She’d heard they were in a narrow stretch of water called Flow Strait. The coast to the south was crawling ever so slowly past.

  The sun was approaching the horizon almost due west. Shell shaded her gaze from its glare. The wind picked up; it would be a damned cold night. Then shouts from ahead – excited yells. Everyone in her boat stood to scan the waters. Shell likewise clambered up, her feet well apart. What was this?

  The lead boat was under oar, moving south with stunning speed. Shell stared. So far this journey all she’d seen was a lackadaisical nudging of the oars. Seemed these Sea-Folk could really charge when they needed to. Of course – why exert yourself unless necessary?

  The lead boat back-oared now, slowing. Shell squinted, and as the intervening waves rose and fell, she thought she glimpsed a dark shape and splashing amid them. A fish?

  Figures leaned over the side of the boat, gesturing, waving. Shell flinched as someone jumped overboard. Queen preserve them! They’ll drown!

  She turned to Ena and was surprised to see her amid her kin, everyone hugging and kissing one another. Seeing her confusion, Ena came to her. She waved ahead, laughing. ‘It is Turo. He found us.’ She cupped her hands to her mouth, shouting, ‘Finished playing in the water, Turo?’

  Shell felt her brow crimping as her gaze narrowed. ‘I do not understand, Ena.’

  The girl-woman giggled, covering her mouth. ‘You do not know, do you? Why, everyone in these lands knows the Sea-Folk hate to be captive. We throw ourselves into the sea rather than be prisoner.’ And she grinned like an imp. ‘So many of us taken away disappear like that.’

  Shell felt her brows rising as understanding dawned. She looked at Lazar, who was smiling crookedly in silent laughter.

  High praise indeed, coming from him.

  Beneath the setting sun a dark line caught Shell’s eye and she shaded her gaze. ‘What’s that ahead to the west?’ she asked, her eyes slitted almost closed.

  Ena’s smile was torn away and a hand rose in a gesture against evil. ‘The Ring!’ she hissed. Turning, she yelled orders at her kinsmen and women. All were galvanized into action. Hands went to mouths and piercing whistles flew like birdcalls between the boats. Gear was shifted and a mast appeared, dragged out from beneath everything to be stepped in place. Tarps covering equipment and possessions were whipped free, rolled and mounted as shrouds. The speed and competence of the transformation dazzled Shell. She tried to find Ena to ask what was going on, but was brushed aside as everyone on board seemed to be holding a line or adjusting stowage. She finally reached the girl towards the bow, where she was twisting a sheet affixed to the sail.

  ‘What’s going on? What is it?’

  She shot a glance ahead. ‘You do not know? No, of course not.’ She sighed, searching for words. ‘It is, how do you say … a cursed place. A haunt of the Lady herself. The Ring. A great circle ridge around a deep hole. Some say bottomless. And it is guarded. Korelri Stormguard are there. None dare approach. It is very bad luck we come to it so late. Those thieving landsmen delayed us half the day!’

  Shell nodded, allowing her to return to her work. She found a place where she could sit out of the way at the bow and peered ahead, trying to separate some detail from the sunset. Stormguard here! Just within reach. What would these Sea-Folk say if they knew they were carrying four outlanders intent upon challenging this military order that so dominated the region? They would probably think us insane. All these generations they have survived beneath the very gaze of the Lady through strategies of trickery and deception.

  Perhaps, she thought, hugging herself for warmth, they would be wise to follow suit.

  Kiska dreamt of her youth on Malaz Island. She was walking its storm-racked rocky coast, with its litter and treasure and corpses of wrecks from three seas. And she was reviewing the ruin that was her life. My childishness and wilfulness. Yet who isn’t when young? My foolish decisions. Yet how else does one learn? Her loss on the field at the plains. I failed him! She picked her way through the bleached timbers and crab-picked bones while all around her the island appeared to be shrinking. Eventually she could complete a full circuit in a mere few strides.

  And it was closing even tighter.

  A sharp pain such as stepping on a nail woke her. Groggy, she blinked up at jagged stone above. Her cave. Her prison. She was still here.

  ‘Hist! Kiska! Are you still with me?’

  She raised her head. Jheval was there, silhouetted against the slightly lighter cave mouth. ‘Yes,’ she croaked. Her mouth felt as dusty and dry as the cave floor itself. ‘Regrettably.’

  ‘I’m hearing something new,’ he murmured, keeping his voice as low as possible.

  There is nothing new in Shadow, Kiska pronounced to herself. Now where had she heard something like that?

  ‘And I haven’t seen our friends for some time now.’

  Meaningless. Without significance. Empty. Futile.

  ‘Kiska!’

  She blinked, startled. She’d dropped off again. She levered herself up by the elbows. ‘Yes?’

  He gestured her to him. ‘Come here. Listen. What do you make of this?’

  Crawling to the cave mouth was one of the hardest things Kiska had ever forced herself to do. She thought she could hear her every sinew and ligament creaking and stretching as she moved. She fancied she could see the bones of her hands through her dusty cracked skin. She planted herself next to Jheval, who appeared to be watching her carefully. ‘Yes?’ she demanded.

  He glanced away and seemed to crook a smile as he turned to the silvery monochrome landscape beyond. ‘Listen.’

  Listen? Listen to what? Our flesh rotting? The sighing of sands? There’s nothing—

  She heard something. Creaking. Loud abrasive squeaking and creaking like wood on wood. What in the world? Or – in Shadow?

  ‘Perhaps we should have a look, yes?’

  ‘It does sound … close.’

  The man was grinning now through the caked-on dirt of his face. How pale the son of the desert looked now, dust-covered. Like a ghost. Though a lively one. She felt a kind of resentful admiration: he seemed to not know how to give up.

  ‘Very good. The both of us, yes? Side by side.’

  She nodded, swallowed to sluice the grit from her mouth. ‘Yes. Let’s go. I have to get out of here.’

  ‘Yes. I feel it too.’ He edged forward, hunched, then straightened outside the narrow crack. Kiska picked up her staff and followed. Out on the sand slope she expected the air to be fresher and cooler, different somehow. Yet the lifeless atmosphere seemed no better. It was as if all Shadow was stale, somehow suspended.

  They climbed a nearby bare hill. Ki
ska tried to be watchful. She knew they should expect an attack at any instant. But she could not muster the necessary focus; she just felt exhausted by all the waiting and almost wanted to have it over with. And no hound appeared. When they reached the crest and looked beyond, they saw why.

  It was a migration. Across the plain before them stretched columns of large creatures. Through the plumes of dust it appeared as if many of them marched in teams, heaving on ropes drawing gigantic boats lashed to wheeled platforms. It was the ear-splitting screeching of these wooden wheels that assaulted them, even from this great distance.

  ‘Locals on the move,’ Jheval said, and started down the hillside.

  Kiska followed, reluctant. Walking out upon them in the open? How could he know they weren’t hostile? They didn’t look even vaguely human.

  Before they reached the lowest hill a figure veered towards them, a picket, or outlier of some sort. As they neared, he – or she, or it – reared ever taller until it became clear to Kiska that it was nearly twice their height. It was, clearly, a daemon, a Shadow creature. Dull black, furred in parts, carrying on its back a brace of spears twice again its own height. It looked insectile: multiple-faceted eyes, a mouthful of oversized fangs, out-of-proportion skinny limbs that appeared armoured. Jheval hailed it, waving. Kiska gripped her staff and winced. She almost shouted: How do you know it speaks our language? How do you know it won’t eat you?

  It stopped, peered down to regard the two of them. Jheval stood with arms crossed, examining the creature in turn. Kiska kept her staff at the ready.

  ‘Do you understand this language?’ Jheval asked.

  ‘Yes, I know this tongue,’ it replied in a startlingly high piping voice.

  Jheval was clearly surprised. ‘You do? Why?’

  ‘This is the language of the pretenders.’

  Pretenders? Ah! Cotillion and Shadowthrone.

  ‘Greetings. I am Jheval. This is Kiska.’

  ‘My name would translate as Least Branch.’

  Jheval gestured beyond, to the columns of its brethren. ‘You are on some sort of migration?’

  ‘Yes. Though not one of our choice. We have been forced to move. Our home has been destroyed.’

  Destroyed? Queen forfend! What force could possibly overcome an entire race of Shadow daemons? And here, in their own homeland.

  Jheval was studying the columns. ‘You are sea-people?’

  ‘Yes. We fished the giant bottom-feeders. We gathered among the shallow wetlands. But the great lake that has supported my people since before yours rose up on your hind legs has been taken from us. Great Ixpcotlet! How we mourn its passing.’

  An entire lake gone? ‘What happened?’ Kiska asked, astonished. This went against all her impressions of a timeless Shadow realm.

  She imagined that many expressions must be flitting across Least Branch’s face, but she and Jheval could not read them. ‘A Chaos Whorl has eaten into this realm you call Emurlahn. It has swallowed Ixpcotlet. It grows even as we flee.’

  Kiska almost dropped her staff. ‘A Whorl? Like a Void? Touching Chaos?’

  Some sort of membrane shuttered across Least Branch’s eyes – an expression of surprise? ‘Yes. Just so. We go to find another body of water, and to warn others. Perhaps we may even find the Guardian.’

  Kiska stared anew. ‘A guardian? Gaunt, ancient? Carries a sword?’

  The creature took a step backwards, obviously stunned. ‘You know of him?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve met him. He calls himself Edgewalker.’

  ‘He spoke to you? That is … unusual. We name him the Guardian.’

  Jheval was eyeing her, clearly surprised himself.

  Least Branch gestured, inviting them to accompany him. ‘Come, won’t you? Don’t you know it is dangerous out here? The Hounds are about.’

  All the way down the hill Kiska wondered if Least Branch was tempted to ask why the two of them laughed so much. How they chuckled uncontrollably, then, catching one another’s gaze, burst out anew. Don’t you know the Hounds are about?

  Least Branch led them to the rear of the migration. They passed two of the boats. Each towered over them, scaled to their gigantic makers. They rumbled on their immense platforms pulled by teams of hundred of the daemons. The dust blinded and choked them and Kiska glimpsed Jheval untying the cloth wrapped about his helmet to wind it over his mouth and face. She imitated him, winding a scarf over her face and leaving only a slit for her vision. The noise was the worst, as wooden wheels shrieked against wooden axles. The daemons did not seem to mind the cacophony but it almost drove Kiska mad.

  Behind the horde, among the churned-up dirt, the shin-deep ruts and tossed rubbish, the gnawed bones, broken pots and excrement, Least Branch stopped to point back along the trail of broken earth. ‘Just follow our path. You cannot miss it. But you do not really seek this Whorl, do you? It opens on to the shores of Chaos. And we sense behind it an unhinged intelligence. We flee it. As you should, too.’

  Kiska was staring up the trail all the way to the flat horizon, which to her eyes appeared bruised, darker. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe it’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘Then I must say farewell, though I confess I am tempted to accompany you.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Because I believe there is a chance you will meet the Guardian. I say this because he has spoken to you once and so may again, for he seldom does anything without a reason. And so, should you meet him, ask him this for myself and for my people, the fishers of Ixpcotlet – why did he do nothing? Why did he not intervene? We are very confused and disappointed by this.’

  Kiska faced Least Branch directly, gazing almost straight up. ‘If I meet him I will ask. This I swear.’

  The daemon waved its thin armoured limbs, the meaning of the gesture unknown to Kiska. ‘I will have to be satisfied with your vow. My thanks. Safe journeying to you.’

  ‘Goodbye. And our thanks.’

  ‘Fare you well,’ Jheval added.

  They watched the great daemon lumber away. The spears clattered and swung on its back as it went. Alone now, free of their huge guide, Kiska felt exposed once more, though the plains that surrounded them lay utterly flat and featureless.

  Jheval cleared his throat. ‘Well, I suppose we’d best get on our way.’

  Kiska eyed him: his fingers were tucked into the lacing securing his morningstars; a habit of his while walking. Thinking of her behaviour during their imprisonment, Kiska said nothing, nodding and starting off. Perhaps they would discuss those days – perhaps even weeks, who knew? – of cramped involuntary companionship some time in the future. Right now it was too close and too raw.

  Perhaps, as she suspected, neither of them would ever mention it again.

  They had assembled forty thousand regulars supported by a backbone of six thousand Malazan veterans of the Sixth. The force was known officially as the Army of Rool. Envoy Enesh-jer commanded, representative of Overlord Yeull. Ussü served as adviser, while Borun commanded his detachment of a thousand Black Moranth. The Overlord remained at the capital, Paliss.

  Ussü was mounted, out of consideration if not for his age, then for his rank. Most of the officers and all of the Envoy’s staff were mounted. However, there was no organized cavalry force large enough to play a major part in any engagement, save harassment, scouting and serving as messengers. The Jourilan and Dourkan might pride themselves on their cavalry, but it had never been cultivated in Rool, or Mare. Possibly the peoples of Fist followed the model of the Korelri – who of course considered horses particularly useless.

  Ussü wished they had many more mounts; the crawling progress of the army chafed him. They had yet to reach the Ancy valley, let alone the Ancy itself. Perhaps it was pure nostalgia, but he was sure the old Sixth could have managed a far better pace. Riding by, he shared many a jaundiced gaze with the veterans, sergeants and officers, as together they scanned the trudging, bhederin-like Roolian troops. He pulled his cloak tighter against the
freezing wind cutting down from the Trembling range and stretched his back, grimacing. Gods, when was the last time he rode for more than pleasure? Yes, we’re all older now. And perhaps the past glows brighter as it recedes ever further. But what we face is not the past – it is the present Malazan army. What of their standards? Who is to say? We know just as much of them as they of us.

  And so two blind armies grope towards each other.

  Where lies the advantage? Intelligence.

  He spurred his mount to the van, and the coterie of officers and staffers clustered around the Envoy. Like flies. Yet is that fair? This Enesh-jer was selected by Yeull. Though it seems as if the choice was based more on the fervency of the man’s devotion to the Lady than on any command competence or experience. Like those of his staff and inner circle: more like priests in their pursuit of rank and prestige than interested in field command. And so similarly am I suspect to them. Magicker, they whisper. Dabbler in the forbidden arts.

  Ussü eased up to catch the Envoy’s gaze as he rode past, but the man was engaged in conversation with an aide, his lean hound’s head averted – stiffly, it seemed to Ussü. The staffers and other lackeys were not so circumspect. Some eyed him coolly, others with open disapproval, while the worst offered open enjoyment of what could be taken as a deliberate, calculated insult.

  Ussü revealed no discomfort. He bowed respectfully in his saddle, urged his mount on. In advance of the van, he kneed the mare into a gallop. What lay ahead? Three days ago word had reached their column by way of refugees of the fall of Aamil. The stories were wild, even given a penchant for panicked exaggeration. The city levelled; citizens slaughtered; a demon army in blue armour, which from their description Ussü quickly understood to be Blue Moranth. The invaders marching west. Things became rather fanciful after that. Flash floods tearing down from the Trembling range carrying off hundreds of the invaders; roads washed out; murderous hailstorms, landslides and earthquakes.

 

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