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

  * * *

  That night she couldn’t sleep. The Nak-ta called to her louder than they had in many years. No matter which way she tossed or turned she couldn’t shut them out. And even more distantly, when she concentrated, she thought she could hear the crash of great shapes lumbering ever closer through the jungle.

  Then a voice called even louder than the wind rustling the palm leaves and shaking the rattan. Wordless it was; no more than a moan that sounded like someone gagged or wounded. Never before had she heard such a thing. And the voice – a man’s. One of the villagers? Occasionally some fool would stagger drunk or sick off the paths only to be taken. If she got to them soon enough she would try to intercede, but when the shades had claimed their victim it was almost impossible to retrieve him. Only once had she exerted the extra, and very perilous, effort necessary – and that had been for a child. She threw on her wrap and padded out past their cleared garden patch into the wall of trees that was the verge of the trackless jungle that stretched from one coast to the other of her land, Jacuruku.

  Once within the darkness between the tall trunks she paused, listening and sensing. She reached out, extending her awareness in an ever-broadening circle. She felt the footfall of the many night creatures surrounding the village, from a small family group of snuffling peccary to the nosing of a tiny shrew. Pushing even further she sensed the hot watchful presence of a night-hunting cat high in its perch, and on the far side of the circle of huts a troop of monkeys scavenged a meal – as far from the cat as possible.

  Strange. Was there no one? Usually those who left the paths at night crashed blindly about as hard to miss as an elephant. So much for the flesh. What of the discarnate? Perhaps—

  A footfall sounded. Close. Heavy. Far too heavy to be that of any villager. Then another. And a shape emerged from the deeper darkness, a monstrously huge figure, tall and broad. It crossed an errant beam of the green-tinged moonlight as it approached and Saeng’s breath caught as she recognized one of the Thaumaturg’s giant armoured soldiers. The yakshaka.

  So – they were here already.

  She calmed herself and knelt, head bowed, awaiting the arrival of its master, who could not be too distant. These indestructible giants guarded the Thaumaturgs and were the backbone of their armies. So it is true. They march to the eastern highlands. An advance upon the true source of the wilderness’s lurking dangers: the vast primeval tracks of the Demon-Queen’s demesnes. The jungle of Himatan, half of this land, half of the spirit realm.

  Yet I sense no others nearby.

  A strange grating noise raised her attention to the yakshaka. Wary, she peeped up. It was doing something at its neck with its heavy armoured hands. Perhaps adjusting the great full helm. The mosaic of inlaid stones that covered its armour glittered as it moved. To Saeng’s horror the helm lifted off revealing a head beneath, the scalp shaved and horribly scarred. Dark eyes – human eyes – blinked, wincing even at this unaccustomed dim light, then peered down at her with a strange gentle intimacy.

  She stared, terrified, and irrationally all she could think was: They’ll blame me for breaking it!

  Then the mouth moved soundlessly, forming a word. A word she couldn’t believe such a creature would know. Her name, Saeng.

  And her flesh prickled in shocked recognition. She knew that face, disfigured though it might be.

  She answered, hardly daring to breathe: ‘Hanu…’

  The yakshaka nodded, its mangled lips rising in a travesty of a smile.

  She came close and pressed a hand to its chest, then recoiled at the cold rigidity of the armour. ‘What happened? Why are you here? What’s going on? Oh, dear Hanu – what’s happened to you?’

  The smile fell from her brother’s lips and his gaze fell. Taking a deep breath he touched a finger to his lips then opened his mouth. Puzzled, Saeng looked, then felt the strength leave her knees and darkness take her.

  His tongue had been sliced away.

  * * *

  She came to, finding herself propped up against a tree. Hanu stood over her, his gaze on the surrounding woods. She peered up at him for a time, enjoying the old familiarity of his presence.

  Guarding me still. But you should not be here. What’s going on?

  ‘Hanu,’ she whispered, ‘why are you here?’

  He turned, peering down. With one gauntleted hand he made a shape and Saeng recognized it as one of their old hand-language signs, part of a system they had invented for silent communication.

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Promise? Whatever do you mean, promise? Your promise to protect me? That?’

  ‘Coming,’ he signed.

  ‘Coming? So – they are coming.’ She stood, brushed the damp rotting humus from herself. ‘Well … what’s that to me?’

  ‘Danger.’

  ‘Danger? Why? Who am I—’ And she understood. The Thaumaturgs’ long hatred of their neighbour extended to denouncing and drowning any considered under her influence. No doubt she would be killed out of hand as a suspected witch and servant of the Demon-Queen. ‘So you—’ She cut herself off again, staring anew. ‘All the lost gods … you’ve run off … You deserted to warn me!’

  ‘Quiet.’

  ‘You great fool!’ she yelled. ‘How does this help? Now it’s your head they’ll want!’

  He winced, signing again, ‘Quiet.’

  ‘Well this is just wonderful. Now we’re both fugitives.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perfect.’ She set her fists on her hips, eyeing him. She watched while he began refitting his helm. ‘Fine … we’ll need food. I’ll go find what I can.’

  ‘Hurry.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She padded back to the hut. Here she set to filling a sack with rice and collected all the preserved fish and vegetables she could find. Through it all her mother lay breathing wetly in her cot. For a moment Saeng considered waking her to say goodbye, but only for a moment. She’d make too much of a fuss.

  Well … I yearned for this moment for so long and now that it’s here I don’t want it. I’m finally getting out of here but this is surely not the way I dreamed of it.

  She threw together a bag of the sturdiest clothes she could find, plus sandals and bedding. From outside the hiss of a light rain brushed against the grass walls. Wonderful. And in the rainy season, too.

  She collected an umbrella of thin wood and set off into the mist.

  Hanu joined her in the dark. He pointed then signed a question, indicating obviously enough, ‘Which way?’

  Under the umbrella, Saeng clutched her bag to herself and bit her lip. Yes, which way? Steeling herself, she extended her awareness outwards farther than she ever had dared before. It expanded to encompass the village, its surrounding garden plots, and the outlying fields and further fallow wildlands that constituted their outlying holdings. It swept onward over neighbouring villages’ wilds and fields, then the modest hamlets themselves. Like thinning ripples its furthest leading edge now brushed up against something far to the west – a sizzling unfamiliar power that repelled her mild questing like a thick wall of dressed stone.

  The army of the Thaumaturgs. And not just passing by in their litters or carts on their mysterious errands. Marching with defences raised and powers unfurled.

  ‘North, I think. We can let them pass by, then return.’

  Hanu simply peered down at her, signing nothing. She felt his mute scepticism. Irritated, she scanned the dense fronds and hanging vines while the light rain pattered down around them as the faintest hint of the downpours to come. She waved him to follow. ‘This way.’

  * * *

  Murken Warrow, known in Untan black-market circles as ‘Murk’, narrowed his already unusually thin eyes on the coast of desert dunes and the forest of strange pillar-like stone markers, then shifted that dubious gaze to his partner Hint, known as ‘Sour’. Together, the duo had achieved a level of notoriety unhealthy in their line of work. They had even come to be pointed out in the streets of Unta as …
well, as Murk and Sour. By then it was long past a prudent time to leave the city – as their arrest proved.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Sour said.

  Hands stuffed into the pockets of his vest, Murk rolled his eyes to the overcast sky and let out a great sigh of long-suffering and annoyance. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘Got a bad feeling ’bout this contract.’

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘Gonna end in tears.’

  ‘As always,’ Murk answered beneath his breath as he squinted to the stern deck where the sponsor of their current contract was speaking with the ship’s captain.

  ‘Miss Nibs is gonna be the death of us,’ Sour continued, aware of his partner’s shift in attention.

  ‘Only if you keep makin’ passes at her.’

  ‘It’s those legs o’ hers. They just go on forever.’

  Murk grunted his agreement at that. The woman wore the most amazing outfits: tall leather boots as high as her knees, tight trousers, a shape-hugging leather hauberk over a lacy white silk shirt. She looked like someone’s fever dream out of a bordello. But the sword strapped to her belt was well worn, and early in the voyage a single punch from her had floored one of the mercenaries for some suggestive remark, real or imagined.

  Most oddly, she insisted on the name Spite.

  Murk smiled now in remembrance of Sour’s remark when she’d given that name. Sour had screwed up his frog eyes and asked, “Would that be Miss or Mrs Spite?” Sometimes the squirrelly guy really did crack him up.

  Orders sounded and the crew began readying the launch and unstowing cargo. ‘Something tells me we’re gonna earn our pay on this one,’ Sour said. Murk let a breath hiss between clenched lips. ‘Gonna be hairy.’

  ‘Enough! Would you just – keep it to yourself for a change?’

  Sour pulled at the tiny tuft of a beard he kept on his chin, frowned while he eyed the coast. ‘Might not make it out.’

  Murk clenched the railing and hung his head in defeat.

  The mercenaries went first to secure the landing. They were a scruffy lot Spite said she picked up on the southern coast of Genabackis. Pirate territory, that. None of them admitted to taking imperial coin. But he could tell they had served their time – though he had yet to call any of them on it, as the same could be said for him and Sour. Their leader, Yusen he gave as his name, smelled especially of officer material. Had that demeanour: that old familiar you’re an idiot look he gave them whenever they had anything to say.

  Reminded him of their days as imperial mage cadre.

  Not much later the scouts returned to the shore to sign the all-clear and the unloading of equipment began.

  They watched the ship’s crew and the mercenaries busy unstowing the crates and sacks, lowering them to the launch, and arranging them in the bobbing craft.

  Some time into the process Murk became aware of the tall slim figure of their employer, Spite, at his side, her arms crossed and her eyes, an amazing rich golden hazel, on them. He nudged Sour and they touched their brows. ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘Things would go much quicker if everyone lent a hand.’

  ‘Just keepin’ an eye out for trouble,’ Sour volunteered.

  One shapely eyebrow arched. ‘Really? When I hired you – or should I say rescued you? – from certain arrest and imprisonment in Unta, I was under the impression that you were not a mage of Ruse. Are you a mage of Ruse?’

  Sour lowered his confused gaze and kicked at the decking. ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Then tell me – how could you be any help here at sea should there be any … trouble?’

  The squat mage raised his head, his mouth open to speak, paused, frowned as he reconsidered, and scratched his scalp instead.

  Spite continued: ‘I want you two to go ashore and reconnoitre.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And do not enter the circle of the dolmens, yes?’

  ‘Dolmens?’ Sour asked. ‘Is that what them pillar things is called?’

  ‘Yes,’ Spite answered as if addressing the village idiot. ‘That’s what they’re called. Don’t enter their formation. Range around. I want to know who’s in the immediate vicinity. Do you think you two can manage that?’

  ‘Oh yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Well and good. That is something at least.’ And she turned away.

  They watched her walk off; Murk could swear she put an extra swing in her hips as she went. At his side Sour gave a heavy sigh.

  ‘They just go on and on…’ he murmured.

  Irritated that this sweaty, unwashed, bow-legged fellow should be giving voice to his own thoughts, Murk elbowed him none too gently. ‘Let’s go.’

  They waited until the launch was completely loaded then climbed down a rope and wood ladder. Sour carried down a chicken in a wicker basket that he handed to a sailor. ‘There you go.’

  The man grabbed it from him while mouthing something under his breath. The two lay down on rolled tent canvas near the bows, crossed their arms, and shut their eyes. The sailors and mercenaries readied the oars.

  As the bows ground up on the beach a light misting rain began to drift over them. Murk and Sour jumped down to the wet sands and walked up the steep shore. More of the crew of mercenaries, who numbered about fifty in all, wandered down to help unload. Yusen appeared and waved the two over to him. When they reached the man in his leather and mail hauberk, mail skirting, iron greaves and vambraces, helmet under his arm, Murk fought an urge to salute.

  He looked them up and down with barely concealed distaste on his lined mouth and in his slate-blue eyes. ‘What do you two think you’re doing?’

  ‘Reconnoitring,’ Murk supplied.

  ‘I have scouts out.’

  Sour made a show of touching a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Not like us.’

  The man rolled his eyes to the thick cloud cover; then, peering about, he allowed, grudgingly, ‘Well, from the looks of this place I’d be right careful, if I were you.’

  Murk almost saluted at that, murmuring instead, ‘Our thanks … Cap’n.’

  The man’s gaze hardened and he dismissed them with a jerk of his head. ‘Get going.’

  ‘Oh, aye aye.’

  They left the sands behind to enter a forest of trees the likes of which Murk had never seen before: some held wide leaves almost as broad as shields, others thick waxy ones like hard bullets. ‘What d’ya think?’ Sour asked as they walked. ‘Fourth Army?’

  ‘Naw. Seventh.’

  ‘Maybe. Long as he weren’t Fifth. Anyways…’ Sour sniffed the air. ‘What d’ya think?’ he repeated.

  Murk shrugged, wiped the misted rain from his face. ‘Hardly anyone. Just a few fisherfolk.’

  ‘Yeah … I think so.’ Sour sat against the base of a tree and stretched out his legs. ‘Is it noon?’

  Murk eyed the other forest just to the north: a forest of grey pillars, dolmens, darkening in the gathering rain. ‘See the ruins when we came in?’

  Sour’s eyes were shut. ‘Yeah. Damned big city.’ His eyes popped open. ‘Say! Think there’s treasure ’n’ such there? Maybe we should have a poke around.’

  Murk favoured his partner with his most scornful glare. ‘There’s no treasure lying around ruined cities. All that’s just silly troubadour’s songs. Naw – it’s all gone. Just dust and rot and dead spiders.’

  Sour shuddered. ‘Gods, spiders. Did you hafta mention spiders? I got feeling all shivery when you said that. Don’t like it at all.’

  Murk’s attention had remained on the dolmens. ‘I know what you mean.’

  Sour cocked his head, one eye screwed up shut. ‘But maybe there’s tombs ’n’ such. Buried loot. How ’bout that?’

  ‘Buried?’ Murk continued to study the maze of stone pillars. ‘Yeah. That would be a whole ’nother question, wouldn’t it…’

  Sour’s gaze followed his partner’s. ‘Aw, for the love of…’ The crab-like fellow gave a great shiver. ‘Bad news that. Knew it the moment I clapped eyes o
n it.’ He bit at a dirty fingernail. ‘Has to be it, though, don’t it? Any other place and I’d jump right in. But there … what a damned shame.’

  Murk spat aside. ‘Aye. Gonna be keep-your-bags-packed scary.’

  ‘You’re startin’ to sound like me,’ Sour complained.

  Murk grimaced. Great gods, now there’s reason enough for me to jump right in.

  * * *

  It was dusk when Murk tapped a snoring Sour to wake him. He motioned aside, mouthing, ‘Here she is.’ Sour nodded. He smacked his lips and stretched. The two shadowed their employer, skulking from towering dolmen to dolmen. The woman was pacing a slow encirclement of the entire installation. As she walked she held a Warren open and the two mages had to glance away wincing and shading their eyes from the powers summoned and manipulated in her hands. The sculpted energy remained behind as a flickering and pulsing wall of power.

  They followed, peering round the pillars, which consisted of stone blocks fitted one on top of the other, tapering to a blunt tip.

  ‘You see what I see?’ Sour fairly yelled to be heard.

  Head turned away, eyes slit, Murk answered, ‘Cutting it off from everything! Nothing’s getting past that wall o’ wards and seals!’

  Together, the two suddenly glanced aside where the rippling barrier of folded Warren-energies stood between them and the outside.

  ‘Shit!’ they mouthed as one and both pelted for the opposite side of the maze of standing stones. As he ran past row after row of the columns, Murk noted how they appeared to possess a slight curve, and he realized that they inscribed immense nested circles, one inside the other. Sour was ahead, his worn shoes kicking up sand, only to stop so suddenly that Murk almost ran over him. Righting himself, he saw what had put a halt to his partner’s flight. It was an open circular court or plaza, empty and utterly featureless, lying at the centre of the dolmens, made of what appeared to be raked gravel.

  The shortest way was straight across, but one glance was all Murk needed to see that that was no option. His mage-sight revealed an entirely different version superimposed upon the apparently empty plaza. Something writhed and coursed under the surface just as a monstrous sea-serpent might thrash beneath ocean waves. Murk hit his partner’s shoulder and gestured aside. Together they took off round the plaza’s border. They reached the opposite side of the massive ruin long before Spite appeared, tracing her ward. They watched her complete the intricate and blindingly powerful ritual while they lay flat behind a dune.