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

  Someone was kneeling with her and a wet cloth was pressed to her brow. The coolness and the gentleness of the gesture revived her immensely. She dared slit open one eye: it was the old Admiral, Nok.

  ‘How did you know that would help?’ she ground through her clenched teeth.

  ‘A mage named Tattersail told me – long ago.’

  She grunted – of course. This man has seen them all.

  ‘Well done, High Mage,’ he said. ‘I believe we are through the worst. And that was the worst I’ve ever seen. The end of the world.’

  ‘No. Not the end of the world, Admiral. The end of their world.’

  Nodding, he squeezed her shoulder and rose; instinctively, he understood that he’d distracted her enough, and withdrew.

  Once the titanic wavefront had swept on far enough – far outstripping the lumbering progress of the vessels – she relaxed. She tried to rise but fell back, tied down. Utterly exhausted, she cleared her throat to croak, ‘Would someone get these ropes off me!’

  Sailors untied her and then the Blue Admiral, Swirl, gently attempted to raise her up but she could not move. Her vision suddenly swirled pink and all sounds disappeared. Agonizing pain seized her joints. No! The depth-sickness! It had her! In the panic she’d neglected her protections!

  Yells of alarm rose around her as she suddenly, explosively, vomited up great gouts of bile and water.

  Ivanr had returned to his weeding. It was heavy work; he’d been away for some time. It was demanding and he was out of shape. How it hurt his chest to bend down!

  Someone was following him but he ignored her.

  ‘Ivanr,’ she called. ‘Your work is not yet done.’

  Don’t I know it – just look at the mess of this garden!

  ‘Your garden lies elsewhere …’

  He turned on the annoying voice to find himself staring down at the small slim form of the Priestess. You are dead.

  ‘And you will be as well if you keep retreating from your duty.’

  Duty? Have I not done enough?

  ‘No. A life’s time would not be enough. The fight is unending.’

  I know. He gestured around. You see?

  ‘Exactly. You are needed. Think of it as … stewardship.’

  Someone else can manage that. He bent to his weeding, wincing, and holding his chest.

  ‘No. It has fallen to you – not because you are somehow special or singled out by fate. It is just that your turn has come. As it came to me.’

  He straightened, studied his muddy hands. That I can understand, I suppose. None of this stupid special chosen nonsense.

  ‘Yes. It is your turn – as it is everyone’s at some time. The test is in our response.’

  He slowly nodded, looked up at the sky. Yes. The test is how you answer. Yes. He rubbed his hands together. I suppose so …

  ‘Ivanr?’ another voice called, this one an old woman. ‘Ivanr?’

  He blinked his eyes, opened them to the hides of his tent outside the city, on his bed. It was day. The old mage, Sister Gosh, was leaning over him, the long dirty curls of her hair hanging down.

  ‘Ivanr?’

  ‘Yes?’

  She sagged her relief. ‘Thank the foreign gods. You’re alive.’

  ‘I thought you said we wouldn’t meet again …’

  She waved her hands. ‘Never mind about that. I was wrong. Now listen, order Ring city evacuated. You must! It is vital! You will save countless lives. Now do it!’

  ‘Order the city evacuated?’

  ‘Yes. A great flood is approaching. Call it the Lady’s Wrath, whatever. Just order it!’

  He frowned. ‘I can’t say that …’

  ‘Just do it!’ she yelled.

  He blinked, surprised, and she was gone. Guards flew into the tent, glared about. Then, seeing him awake, they fell to their knees.

  He cleared his throat, croaked hoarsely: ‘Evacuate the city.’

  The guards glanced to one another. ‘Deliverer … ?’

  ‘Evacuate the city!’ He squeezed his chest. ‘It … it is doomed. Empty it now.’

  Eyes widening in superstitious fear and awe, the guards backed away. Then they bowed reverently. ‘Yes, Deliverer!’ And fled.

  Ivanr eased himself back down into his bed. He massaged his chest. Gods, how giving orders hurt!

  Sister Gosh straightened from where she’d taken cover from the gusting frigid wind next to cyclopean stones that anchored an immense length of chain, the links of which were as thick as her thigh. The huge chain extended out across a wide gap of water between the tips of two cliffs, the ends of a ridge of rock that encircled a deep well that was supposedly bottomless. The Ring. Metal mesh netting hung from the chain – a barrier to anything larger than a fish.

  She studied the rusted gnawed metal of the chain, pulled a silver flask from her shawls, up-ended it in a series of gulping swallows then shook it, found it empty, and shrugging threw it away. She set both hands upon the final link and bent her head down to it, concentrating. Smoke wafted from the iron and a red glow blossomed beneath her hands.

  ‘It’s just you and I now, Sister Gosh,’ someone said from behind her.

  Sighing, she turned to see Brother Totsin, the wind tossing his peppery hair and the tatters of his frayed vest, shirt and trousers. ‘Thought you’d show up.’

  ‘The Lady is with me, Gosh. I suggest you join as well.’

  Sister Gosh sighed again. ‘The Lady is using you, fool. And in any case, she’s finished.’

  ‘Not if you fail here.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Totsin frowned, disappointed, as if he were dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘You cannot win. The Lady has granted me full access to her powers.’

  ‘Meaning she owns you.’

  His greying goatee writhed as he scowled his irritation. ‘Be the stubborn fool then. I never liked you.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear that.’

  He launched himself upon her. Their arms met in an eruption of power that shook the stones beneath their feet. Rocks tumbled down some ten fathoms to the blue-black waters of the Hole below. The gargantuan chain rattled and clacked to vibrate in a frothing line across the gap. The flesh of Sister Gosh’s hands wrinkled and cracked as if desiccated. She snarled, bearing down further, her face darkening in effort. A satisfied smile crept up behind Totsin’s goatee.

  Like an explosion a crack shot through the chiselled stone beside them anchoring the chain. Snarling, Totsin twisted to heave Sister Gosh out over the Hole. Black tendrils like ribbons snapped out around him, yanking him backwards, and the two released their mutual grip with a great thunderclap of energy.

  A new figure now stood upon the narrow stone perch, tall, emaciated, dressed all in black, his black hair a wild mass. ‘I have come back!’ he announced.

  Edging round to face both, Totsin nodded to the newcomer: ‘Carfin. I am surprised to see you again.’

  ‘The truth at last, Totsin. The truth at last.’

  A rumbling swelled in the distance as of a thunderstorm, though only high clouds obscured the sky. Sister Gosh and Carfin shared alarmed glances.

  Totsin laughed. ‘Too late!’

  ‘Not yet,’ Sister Gosh snarled, and she threw everything she had at him.

  The blast of energies surprised Totsin, throwing him back a step. Carfin levelled his Warren as well. The coursing power revealed far more potency than even Sister Gosh suspected of him – it seemed his sojourn within his Warren had granted him much greater confidence in his abilities. Totsin flailed beneath the cataract streams coursing upon him then, grimacing, leaned forward, edging in upon them. Carfin gestured again and a cowl of black snapped over the man’s face. His hands leapt to the hood, grasping, tearing it into shreds. Sister Gosh yelled as she drew up a great coil of might that she snapped out upon Totsin. He flinched back, crying aloud, and stumbled off the lip. Sister Gosh kept her punishment centred upon him all the way down, and, though she could not be sure, she believed
he struck the water far below.

  ‘Thank you,’ she gasped to Carfin.

  ‘It was nothing.’

  She turned to the anchor stone and the chain. ‘Quickly now.’

  Each pressed hands to the final link, stressing, heating, searching for weaknesses. The water, she noted, now ran far higher on the chain than it had before. Thunder rising in pitch announced the approach of something enormous emerging from Bleeder’s Cut.

  ‘What was it like?’ she asked while they worked.

  ‘What was what like?’

  ‘Your Warren. Darkness. Rashan.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Carfin answered, straight-faced. ‘It was dark.’

  The metal glowed yellow now beneath Sister Gosh’s hands. Drips of molten metal ran down the sides. ‘You mean like that slimy cave you live in?’

  Carfin clapped his hands and the metal of the link suddenly darkened to black beneath a coating of frost. It burst in an explosion of metal shards, Sister Gosh yanking her hands away. Screeching, grinding, the immense length of iron dragged itself down the lip of the cliff to flick from sight. Away across the gap water foamed and settled over its length as it sank.

  ‘It is not a cave,’ Carfin told Gosh. ‘It is a subterranean domicile.’

  The ridge of solid rock they stood upon shook then, rolling and heaving. A titanic bulge of water came coursing over the bay created where Bleeder’s Cut met Flow Strait. The wave, more a wall of water, flowed over the Hole and with it went swift glimmering flashes of mother-of-pearl and brilliant sapphire.

  Sister Gosh and Carfin sat on the lip of the stone. These flashes of light sank within the nearly black waters of the Hole. They seemed to descend for a long time. Then eruptions frothed the surface, greenish light flashing, coruscating from the depths. Over the Hole the surface bulged alarmingly, as from the pressures of an immense explosion. Then they hissed, steaming and frothing anew. Fog obscured the pit of the Ring, hanging in thick scarves.

  The afternoon faded towards evening. Sister Gosh watched the undersides of the clouds painted in deep mauve and pink. More shapes came flashing through the waters to descend into the Hole. She fancied she saw the shells of their armour opalescent in emerald and gold. Reinforcements?

  Whatever was down there was a long time in dying. Eruptions blistered the surface anew. Lights flickered like undersea flames. It seemed a full-blown war somewhere far beyond the ken of humankind.

  Slowly, by degrees, the ferocity of the struggle in the depths appeared to wane. Evening darkened into twilight. Carfin amused himself making shapes of darkness dance upon the stones. Seeing this, Sister Gosh growled far down in her throat. The shapes bowed to her, then diffused into nothingness. Carfin sighed and shifted his skinny haunches. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now everyone and their dog will be a hedge-wizard or seasoother. ’

  Carfin wrinkled his nose. ‘Gods. It’ll be awful.’ He rose, dusted off his trousers. ‘I’ll stay in my cave – that is, my domicile.’

  ‘Good riddance.’

  ‘And to you.’ He stepped into darkness and disappeared.

  Now that’s just plain showing off.

  Below, swift shapes passed beneath the soles of her mud-covered, tattered shoes, coursing out into the bay. Far fewer than had entered, that was for sure. So it was over, here at least. What of elsewhere? Did the Riders fare as well against their other targets? Who knew? She was dog-tired. So tired she wondered whether there was a boat somewhere on this damned island.

  Suth and Corbin followed Keri through the tunnels. They stayed close as the woman showed an alarming willingness to throw her Moranth munitions wherever she wished, and at the least hint of danger.

  Almost hugging her back, Suth asked, ‘Did the old man send you to help us?’

  She sent him an irritated glare over her shoulder. ‘What old man?’

  ‘Never mind. So, they sent you to find us? All alone?’

  She stopped in the dimness of a tunnel, turned on him, an explosive shrapnel munition called a sharper in one fist. ‘Listen, Dal Hon. Alone is better, right? That way I can throw these without having to worry about your sorry arses, right?’

  Suth raised his hands in surrender. ‘Yes, okay! Whatever you say.’

  ‘Damned straight.’

  Corbin raised the lamp. ‘What’s the hold-up?’

  ‘Numbnuts here,’ Keri muttered. Corbin and Suth shared commiserating looks. ‘This way,’ Keri ordered, and headed off.

  Suth expected Stormguard to jump out from every corner. He was shaken by their ruthless competence. They were ferocious opponents. Of their separated party only he and Corbin remained on their feet. Both squads had been ravaged, and Suth frankly doubted any of them would live to see the light of day again.

  Keri led them through sections of half-collapsed tunnels, the scenes of confrontations where the dead lay where they fell, Stormguard and Malazan alike. Suth recognized the body of Sergeant Twofoot, nearly hacked to pieces. A faint yellowish glow ahead signalled a light source and Keri halted. She made a tapping noise, some sort of signal. It was answered differently but apparently correctly for she straightened, waving them on.

  They entered a guarded chamber holding all that was left of the team: Fist Rillish, bearing many cuts, the Adjunct Kyle, Captain Peles, her armour gashed and helm dented, the squat priest, Sergeant Goss, Wess, and a few of Twofoot’s squad.

  Goss squeezed Suth’s shoulder. ‘The others?’

  ‘Too wounded.’ The priest, Ipshank, straightened from where he’d been sitting. ‘Manask …’

  ‘He was wounded, unconscious last we saw.’

  Fist Rillish came forward. ‘And the elder, Gheven?’

  ‘He left by Warren to get help.’

  Ipshank grunted at that. ‘Good. But we can’t count on it. We must press forward.’

  Fist Rillish turned on the man. ‘Why? Tell me that. We are outnumbered. I see no reason to lose anyone more.’

  Ipshank nodded his understanding. ‘Yet we must.’

  ‘Why?’

  The priest looked to Kyle who watched, arms crossed, the grip and pommel of the sword at his side glowing in the dim light. ‘Because I believe Greymane is going to use his sword, Adjunct. And when he does we must be ready to finish what he has begun – else it will all be for nothing.’

  Perhaps unconsciously, the young Adjunct’s fist went to his own sword to close there, tight. He shook his head, in a kind of rueful self-mockery as if at some joke known only to him, and on him. ‘I understand, Ipshank. I will go on. No one need accompany me.’

  ‘I will, of course,’ Ipshank answered.

  ‘And I,’ the Fist added.

  ‘And I,’ said Captain Peles.

  ‘We’re all goin’,’ Goss rumbled, and signed Move out.

  They advanced unopposed through sections of the tunnels. The Adjunct and the Fist led, followed by Captain Peles and the priest, then the regular troopers including Suth, Corbin and Wess. Sergeant Goss brought up the rear. Suth wondered at the lack of opposition but he overheard the Fist opining that they’d withdrawn to guard their target. Ipshank now guided them, choosing corners and which chambers to pass by or enter.

  Eventually they reached a widening in the excavation that ended at solid stone. Tall double doors reared in the naked cliff bearing the sigil of the Lady, the white starburst. After glancing about, wary of ambush, the Adjunct approached, tried the doors, found them closed and secured. He drew his blade. In the dimness it glowed like pure sunlight. Two-handed, he struck directly down into the middle where the doors met, and hacked through in a ringing of metal. He kicked a leaf and it swung heavily open, crashing against stone. They crowded forward.

  It was a temple to the Lady. A long columned hall gave way to a wider chamber. Daylight streamed in from high up through portals cut into the rock. Awaiting them were gathered some twenty Stormguard. Behind them two priests flanked the tiny figure of a young girl who held before her a chest of dark wood glowing with silver tr
acery.

  ‘Retreat, heretics,’ one of the bearded priests called, ‘or be destroyed by the holy wrath of the Lady.’

  They spread out, the Adjunct and Fist Rillish taking the centre of the line. The Adjunct edged forward. He did not bother answering. One priest stamped his staff against the polished stone flagging and the Korelri spread out, drawing blades. A faint blue-green flame, an auora all too familiar to Suth, arose around the two priests. They touched their staffs to the Stormguard before them and the flames spread from man to man down the lines.

  On Suth’s right the priest Ipshank growled, ‘Shit.’ He shouted: ‘They’ll ignore wounds now!’

  Suth knew this from prior experience. The priests howled some sort of invocation to the Lady and levelled their staffs. The flames leapt across the chamber to strike the Adjunct and Ipshank, who flinched, stepping back, grunting their pain and raising arms to protect their faces, but neither fell back.

  The Korelri charged.

  Suth fought with sword and shield. The Stormguard attacked first with spears.

  Keri raised a sharper but the Fist yelled at her to stop. Cursing, she swung the bag to her rear and drew two long-knives. The Adjunct leapt forward, swinging. His blade struck a Stormguard but was deflected away in a shower of sparks and crackling energy.

  ‘Who protects you?’ a priest yelled at the Adjunct.

  Ipshank grasped a spear thrust at him and held on though his hands smoked. The stink of burning flesh wafted over Suth. The troopers from Twofoot’s squad fell. Keri stepped into the gap, parrying. Suth was almost taken by a thrust as he peered over, terrified for her. A spearhead grazed her face, then another took her in the thigh and she fell. Goss hacked two of the Stormguard but they would not fall, and, momentarily surprised, the sergeant was thrust through the stomach. Wess and Corbin held the gap but were close to being overborne. Then a huge figure came bounding into the room to join them: Manask, his armour hanging from him in shreds. He’d somewhere found a great halberd, which he swung, beheading a Stormguard. The headless body tottered and fell.