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

  A steady beat! As strong as before. It was as if nothing had happened! Thank you, my Lady. With such seemingly inexhaustible strength to draw upon – imagine what I can accomplish!

  He brushed the dust and litter from the man. Pulled the larger stones and fallen grit from the wound. Would the Riders bother to strike here? Somehow he didn’t think so. They had their breach elsewhere. No, it would be the Malazans. This was their chance to finish things. Shattering a section of the wall was one thing – stone and wood can be repaired. Truly crushing the Korelri would be another.

  It was hard to think with such enormous forces pressing upon him. The gathering might felt like a mountain suspended above his head. A vast displacement was bearing down through the Narrows. And he, even from this far, felt it like a giant’s boot crushing him.

  And what of the Overlord? He raised his Warren and cast his vision south. What he saw made him lurch, almost sickened. No! You fool! The man had his army marshalled still within sight of the coast! Why wasn’t he in the highlands? Had he no idea – but no, of course not. Gods! I must warn him!

  Ussü threw himself upon Bars. He savagely pushed his hand into the wound, parting the glutinous scab of blood and fluids to quest down amid the organs. His fingers slid down around a lung and through the tears in the fat and muscle fibre surrounding the beating heart. Pressing his head down close to the subject’s chest he closed his eyes and reached out to take the additional energy needed for a sending. Grasping this, he projected his consciousness southward.

  He found Yeull wrapped in layers of blankets and furs, standing outside watching his tent burning to the ground. Chaos surrounded him, soldiers running about. ‘Overlord!’ he called, peremptorily, to be heard above the riot. The man’s eyes flicked about, searching. His mouth drew down, frowning even more.

  ‘What witchery is this?’ he murmured, his gaze slitted.

  Yeull, he knew, was seeing the faint and wavering image of himself, Ussü, outlined by his aura energies. ‘I have news! A warning!’

  ‘A warning?’ The Overlord spread his arms. ‘Rather late it would seem.’

  ‘No! Worse – why are you still here? Why have you not struck inland?’

  Yeull’s gaze became creamy with a kind of satisfied cunning and his mouth crooked up in a half-smile. ‘Best to give the Korelri a good scare, yes? They’ll appreciate us all the more once we’ve rescued them from these invaders …’

  Ussü could not contain himself any longer. All he had endured from the man came rushing up, choking him like swallowed vomit. ‘You loathsome cretin! Because of your childish scheming—’

  ‘Hey? What’s that? Has the Lady driven you insane, man?’

  ‘Just listen to me and flee! Run! Order everyone to high ground! Abandon everything!’

  Yeull scowled his confusion. ‘What’s that? Run? Whatever for?’

  ‘A huge wave! A flood—’ Ussü broke off as outside Ice Tower, just beneath his feet, another mage suddenly announced his presence by raising his Warren. ‘Just order everyone to run for high land! You are warned!’ And he broke away from Yeull as the man opened his mouth to ask for more explanation, or to object.

  Drawing upon his and the Lady’s power and the life energy of his subject, Ussü quested passively down through the tower to find the mage. A practitioner of D’riss – and strong. Very well. I will have to strike hard, make sure of it immediately. He began drawing and coiling power, gathering it into one stored blast to unleash in a single gesture. When the potentiality was almost bursting beyond his control, he projected it down the tower and released it.

  The blast shook him high in his chamber. The entire tower groaned and shifted. More dust rained down, and somewhere a beam shattered in an answering explosion.

  Fingers decided he’d had enough of life without access to a Warren. These damned Stormguard had snapped the otataral wrist-torc on him and since then life had been nothing but one long indignity. They forced him out into the frigid cold to chase those damned Riders off the wall – nearly getting him run through! And all the while he was as sick as a dog and would like to die – if he could!

  Then someone unleashes Burn’s own fury against the Stormwall and wearing this torc all he can do is watch while the tremor strikes, bringing down the tower around him. He’d be dead, he knew, if it weren’t for the Vow. Apparently the otataral does nothing to impede its effectiveness. He’s crawled over broken stones, up rubble-choked stairs, dragged himself over flattened burst bodies, and now he’s lying outside on the wall, smeared in crap, somewhere along this blasted wall, gods know where, stranded! Two broken legs and no way to bloody heal himself.

  Panting, almost delirious with pain, he raised his head to study the belt-knife he’d taken from one of the corpses. Only thing for it … He pressed his right hand, palm up, to the frozen stone flagging and set the edge of the knife to the wrist. Goodbye hand! So much for rope climbing.

  ‘You really ought to be dead,’ someone rumbled over him.

  Fingers peered up, blinking, close to passing out. ‘What?’ Whoever this was, he was a giant of a fellow, occluding almost all the sky.

  ‘You are a mage, yes?’

  Swallowing, Fingers managed a faint ‘Yes.’ Then he cried out a yell, his vision blackening, as the big man yanked on his right hand.

  ‘You want this off, yes?’

  Fingers could only hiss, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well. All others are dead, as far as I can see. Only we two survive here. I am leaving. But before I go, remember, I, Hagen of the Toblakai, rescued you.’

  Fingers nodded. Yes, certainly, Hagen, yes. Whoever.

  The giant twisted the torc and Fingers yelled again as the fellow nearly broke his wrist. Then it was free and Fingers felt his Warren blossom open to him once more. He sighed, almost ecstatic, and felt like hugging the great shaggy ape. But the fellow, Hagen, had merely pushed off, running for the rear of the wall. Fingers stared uncomprehending as the giant increased his pace, faster and faster, until one huge bounding leap took him up and over the rear of the wall to disappear.

  He gazed for a time at the blank section of stone where the giant had jumped and thought, Was that really a Toblakai?

  Then, blinking and shaking his head as if to awaken from a trance, he set about healing his legs so that he could at least stand – not that he had any feel at all for the tricky Denul Warren.

  On the cluttered stone floor of the infirmary, amid the toppled beds, fallen instruments and shards of stone, Corlo lay staring up at a titanic wooden beam fully a foot wide and a foot thick, yet split right through and hanging directly overhead.

  Someone was next to him, talking, but he ignored the man. Fall, he urged. Fall, you bastard! Cut me in half!

  The fellow was saying something about a saw and cutting – Corlo just wished he’d go away.

  Why by all the gods above and below am I still alive? What have I done that was so terrible to deserve such punishment? Why have I been singled out like this? Aren’t you done with me? What more could you possibly squeeze from me?

  Something bit at his leg and he peered down. The man – Jemain! – was cutting off his leg at the knee. Jemain is cutting my leg off!

  Corlo lunged for his neck. He hooked his fingers around Jemain’s throat but the fellow easily pushed him down – he was so weak! Why was he so weak? One arm pressing on Corlo’s chest, Jemain returned to sawing at the knee.

  When the iron teeth slid under his kneecap Corlo passed out.

  Shell awoke lying on her side. Her right arm was numb and it was an agony to breathe any deeper than the shallowest of gasps. Ribs broken. Only the instantaneous raising of Blues’ Warren had saved her life in that attack. As it was, she hadn’t fared so well. From where she lay she could see Lazar, close to the shattered crenellations, engaged in a duel with two Stormguard, both of whom carried the flaming aura of what they called the Lady’s Grace.

  Possession would be her word for it.

  On the far side of
the wall, the escaped prisoners, Malazans mostly, fought Korelri holding the stairs, Wall Marshal Quint among them.

  But at the centre of the marshalling walk Blues was taking terrible punishment from this new mage who had suddenly announced himself. A mage? She thought these Korelri had no mages. And of terrifying power, too!

  The driving energies were pushing Blues back towards the crumbling forward edge of the wall. Beyond, the seas raged, frothing and tumbled – the tremor must have struck there as well, underwater. As for the Riders, they appeared too preoccupied to take advantage of the chaos here. Waves still struck, however, still overtopping in washes of bitingly chill waters with every other strike.

  Around Blues all the ice sizzled and melted in the wash of energies unleashed by this mage. Steadily Blues was being pushed to the lip of the wall. Obviously, this Korelri meant to drive him over the edge. Gods! And she could not help! Just tensing her chest sent lances of agony through her and she winced, screwing shut her eyes, tears freezing on her cheeks.

  Then a hand on her chest and relief – blessed easing. She sucked a shuddering breath deep into her lungs and opened her eyes to see Fingers kneeling next to her. He grinned his encouragement. ‘Looks like Blues has finally dug up a real threat.’

  Drawing one more wonderful breath, Shell gave him a nod and together they threw all they could muster against the mage.

  More of these enemy mages! Ussü was surprised, but with the resources now at his command he was more than ready for them. The wellspring of power that sustained this Avowed seemed limitless; while the Lady’s blessing, though thinning, continued. Along that flow of energies he sensed an awareness, the Lady herself perhaps, distracted, flailing, directing one quick vicious command his way: Slay them all!

  Most certainly, Mistress. Ussü bore down, hammering this D’riss mage – why wouldn’t the man fall? He seemed impossibly resilient to the might he was pouring down upon him. Die, damn you! How could you possibly still live? Who is this prisoner? Another Malazan cadre mage?

  The body beneath him convulsed then, almost shaking him loose. Ussü snapped open his eyes to see just a hand’s breadth away this subject, the Avowed, aware and glaring, burning rage into him. Ussü stared back at the man. ‘You’re conscious?’ he breathed in wonder.

  The gagged mouth drew up in a ghastly smile. The muscles of the arms and chest tensed – even around Ussü’s wrist they tensed, and the man strained on the chains binding him. His face flushed, veins starting out and writhing. Ussü could not believe what he was witnessing. What did the man think he could … Then it occurred to him: the earthquake! Gods, no! He snapped a glance to the floor. The stone blocks were now uneven, jostled. The iron pin positively vibrated, quivering, grinding.

  Oh no. Gods, no. Please do not play with me so. He clenched his hand, raising another thrashing convulsion from the man. ‘I have your heart! Stop! Or I will crush it!’

  The ghastly, almost insane smile remained fixed at the gagged mouth.

  No! Stop! You don’t—

  The pin rang as it snapped free. The arms flattened Ussü to the man’s chest.

  Yet Ussü kept his grip, staving off the combined attacks of all three mages. The chains fell away with a clash. The Avowed pulled down the gag. ‘Now I have you,’ he grated.

  Ussü twisted his fist: the organ laboured, squeezed in his hand. The man’s eyes glazed in agony, fluttering, his arms weakening. ‘Who will die first, I wonder?’ he asked.

  Bars shook the chains off his arms. He snapped a hand to Ussü’s throat. ‘You’re forgetting,’ he panted, hoarse with the unimaginable torture he’d endured. ‘I can’t die.’

  ‘Yes you can.’ And Ussü clenched with all his might, meaning to pulp the shuddering ball of muscle in his fist. But Bars’ hand clenched as well, crushing Ussü’s throat, cutting off his breath, the life force from his lungs. As Ussü’s life slipped away from him he suddenly saw far into the wellspring of the inexhaustible might sustaining this Avowed and he understood its source. He gazed at the man’s flushed twisted face, not a hand’s breadth from his own, appalled by the magnitude of the discovery. He opened his mouth, meaning to tell him: Do you have any idea—

  Bars squeezed until his clenched fingers cramped, shook the body one last time to make sure of it, then relaxed his grip on the corpse. With his other hand he gently, oh so damned gently, grasped hold of the wrist where it entered his chest, and slowly, as tenderly as possible, pulled.

  The anguish returned – torture beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. White blinding fire blossomed again in his mind. All his death-wishes were as nothing compared to his desire to be free of this agony. Anything! Death would be as the most soothing balm. Infinitely preferable.

  The hand came free with a sickening sucking noise. Revolted, Bars threw the body aside only to wince, gasping and cradling his chest. He stayed like that for some time: sitting up, curled around his wound, arms wrapped round his chest. The slightest move was an ordeal beyond any consideration.

  After a time someone was at the door. Bars cracked one eye for a look. It was Blues. The man entered gingerly, as quietly as he could, stepping over litter. Bars raised a finger to forestall him. ‘Don’t fucking touch me.’

  Blues eyed the fallen mage, nodded solemnly. Bars pointed to his chained legs. Blues waved and the chain fell away. Gritting his teeth, Bars eased one leg down to the floor, then the other. Blues closed to help but Bars waved him away. ‘Let’s get out of this Hood-damned hole.’

  Blues stood aside of the door. ‘Damn right.’

  They were on the stairs, Blues ahead, casting quick worried glances back to Bars, when someone called from a blocked room: ‘Hello! Is that someone? Hello?’

  Bars straightened up from cradling his chest, his eyes huge. ‘Jemain? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes. Bars?’

  Bars gestured to the blocked doorway. Blues motioned and stones began grating aside. Jemain’s anxious face appeared in a gap. ‘Bars! Corlo’s here – he’s hurt.’

  On the wall, Fingers tried to raise Shell, who, grimacing and hissing, pulled her hands free: ‘Wait! Listen!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Grab hold of something, now!’

  Fingers faced the bay, grunted, ‘Aw shit …’

  A wave smashed into the battered crenellations, overtopped easily and kept coming at them. It pushed loose blocks aside then struck them, submerging Shell. She held on, straining not to be washed off the wall and cast over the rear to shatter on the rocks below. Through the slurry of deathly cold water she saw the shimmering armour of a Stormrider standing before her.

  She threw her head back, gasping in air, panting, her limbs shivering almost uncontrollably. The entity peered down, regarding her. Its sword remained sheathed at its side, no lance in evidence. Its helm shifted as it looked about. Then it raised an arm, the scaled armour flashing iridescent, seeming to salute her, and backed away.

  Fingers appeared at her side, supported her. Together they watched while the entity reached the outer shattered crenellations and stepped back to fall away.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Fingers asked, stuttering.

  ‘I think they’re done here.’

  ‘So’re we,’ Fingers growled. ‘C’mon.’

  Down one way they saw the Stormguard righting themselves where they blocked the one access leading off the wall. Of the Malazans Shell saw no sign. Fingers motioned the other way; there Lazar fought splashing through the thinning waters, duelling two Stormguard both still glowing with the aura of the Lady. She and Fingers raised their Warrens.

  Their combined strike smashed the two Chosen from the wall, casting them tumbling out into the white-capped waves, where they disappeared. Holding her numb side, Shell joined Lazar to peer down over the broken lip of the wall to the waters foaming below. ‘Thanks, you two,’ Lazar said, breathing heavily. ‘Those boys just wouldn’t go down.’

  ‘Neither would you,’ Fingers remarked, as he came limping up behi
nd.

  Lazar drew off his full helm and steam plumed in the frigid air from the sweat soaking his hair and running down his face. He drew in great breaths, blowing and gasping; then, peering out over the inlet, he froze. ‘Damn Hood …’

  Shell looked over and her flesh prickled with true terror. A wave was approaching up the narrow bay – a wave unlike any she’d seen before. More a mountain of water, webbed in slush and topped in white spume, already looming far taller than the wall itself.

  ‘Oponn’s throw,’ Fingers breathed.

  Lazar punched Shell’s arm, making her wince. ‘Let’s go!’

  They met Blues and Bars at the tower entrance. Jemain was following behind, carrying an unconscious Corlo, one of whose legs now ended at a wrapped stump. ‘We have to go,’ Fingers told Blues. ‘Now.’

  ‘What about the Malazans?’ Shell asked. She looked to where four Korelri Stormguard remained, Quint included, holding the stairs. Only a few fallen Malazan bodies were visible.

  ‘They ran for the high pass,’ Blues said.

  ‘Good luck to them,’ Fingers added.

  Shell warned: ‘Blues – take us.’ Quint had motioned to his brother Stormguard and they were approaching.

  ‘All right, all right!’ Blues answered. ‘We’re gone. Stand close.’

  Quint rounded the side of the tower to find the wall … empty. The foreigners had fled; they’d used their alien Warren witchery to escape. Movement out over the inlet caught his eye and he stared. At first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing – the scale was all wrong. No wave could possibly be that tall, that immense. A small voice whispered in the back of his mind: It is the prophesied end of the Stormwall come upon them after all. First the earth shakes then the waters come to reclaim the land – was that not the ancient warning of the end of the world?