Blinking, Murk saw that they stood at the crowded edge of a river. A near impenetrable wall of bright green verdancy lined both shores. The water was a slow-moving rust-red course that carried clumps of fallen branches and leaves along with it. Above, the sky was a clear bright blue except where a wall of dark clouds lurked in the east – the night’s rain. The wave of disturbed birdlife washed onward along the shore, brilliant shapes darting and swooping in gleaming emerald and sapphire. Like an explosion in a jewellery bourse, it seemed to Murk.
Yusen crouched at the descent to the muddy edge. ‘Should we swim it?’ he asked Murk.
Murk turned to Sour. ‘Want to take a peek?’
‘She won’t like it,’ he warned while adjusting his mouldering cap.
‘Who won’t?’ Yusen asked sharply.
‘Ardata,’ Murk half-mouthed.
‘Ah. I thought perhaps he meant…’
Murk shook his head. ‘No, not her. I don’t think she cares what we do.’
The captain’s thoughtful expression said that he didn’t know whether to be reassured by that. Murk nodded the go-ahead to Sour, who took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘But there’s gonna be trouble…’ He edged down the slope.
Murk, the captain and Sweetly watched while the crab-legged mage sniffed about the shore. He poked at the mud and picked up bits and pieces of flotsam that he examined so close to his goggle eyes that Murk could see them cross. Satisfied at last, he sat with his back to them and tossed the collected litter on to a piece of leather spread on the mud. He peered down at the mess for some time.
The blanket of heat and humidity caused Murk’s eyelids to droop and his shoulders to sag. His attention wandered to find Sweetly staring off upriver. The scout’s fixed interest stirred his unease. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.
The scout’s flat gaze flicked to him and the twig clamped tightly between his slit lips fell almost straight down.
Shit. He nodded, then shut his eyes against the painful, unfamiliar glare of open sky. Raising his Warren was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was his responsibility. If he and Sour expected the troops to fight in their defence then they, in turn, were expected to utilize their talents to defend the column. That was the Malazan way: always an even exchange. And frankly, he wouldn’t be able to face them if they saw he was coasting on their backs. He didn’t know if Sour felt the same way about it all. He suspected not; the man was a far worse match to the rules and strictures of military life. And anyway, the troopers treated him more like a stray dog – one that had been kicked in the head once too often.
When he opened his eyes once more he found that he was still within the murky tangle of the Shadow woods. What that demon had named the forest of the Azathanai. How absurd it was that the one feature of all Shadow he dared not enter should be the place jammed right over where he was stuck. He decided to minimize his exposure by using the Warren merely to shift from place to place.
He caught Yusen’s attention, murmured, ‘Be right back,’ and stepped into the nearest shadow. From here he shifted to another, then another, and in this manner he moved southward. He scanned the jungle from the cover of a number of different shadows and once he was reasonably sure no one was about, he stepped out. He saw no sign of what might’ve interested the scout. It may just have been the nervous birds. One more trick. He felt through the shadow-stuff, the ephemeral Emurlahn ether, the shades of Rashan. He was searching for something specific among the flickering shapes and eventually he found it cast against the broad trunk of a tree: the silhouette of a nearly naked man, crouched, armed with spear and bow.
He returned to Yusen.
Down on the shore, Sour slipped and slid through the sticky mud flats. He poked at the clutter that accumulated along any river edge, the silvery tree branches, the layers of rotting leaves, and the thick cake-like pats of clay. Satisfied at last, he flicked his hands to clean them of the clinging mud, his gauntlet tatters flapping madly, then struggled up the naked dirt slope.
Reaching the top, he took a moment to catch his breath. Everyone waited silently for his judgement. He wiped a hand across his brow to brush away the beaded sweat but only succeeded in smearing a thick swipe of ochre-hued mud across his face.
Murk hissed out an impatient breath. ‘So? Should we cross?’
‘What’s that? Cross? No. Not a good idea.’
‘So we don’t cross.’
‘No. I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, you did – just now.’
‘No. That’s not what I said.’
Murk took a quick breath to yell his frustration but Yusen raised a hand for silence. Murk clenched his teeth until they hurt. ‘So…’ the captain said to Sour, slowly, as if speaking to a child, ‘what should we do?’
‘We shouldn’t cross…’ A pained grunt of suppressed wrath escaped Murk ‘… least not right now.’
Yusen’s brows rose. ‘I see. Or I believe I do. Very good.’ He lifted his attention to Sweetly. ‘South – for now.’
The lanky scout’s jaws bunched and he turned away. The twig was held so straight down in his mouth it was pressing against his chin.
When the captain turned his back, Murk threw a cuff at Sour who ducked away, mouthing, ‘What?’
South. Wonderful. Towards our watching friends.
As they returned to the column, Murk asked, ‘So … what’s the problem? Why can’t we cross? What does Miss Nibs say?’
Sour was brushing the drying mud and clay from himself. ‘I don’t ask her. Don’t you know nothing? Does crazy Ammanas answer your every question?’ He raised his voice mockingly. ‘Dear Murk – you lent your knife to Lengen. That’s why you can’t find it.’
Murk did cuff him this time. ‘Quiet.’
‘Why?’
Murk tilted his head to the south and answered low. ‘’Cause we’re not alone.’
‘Who? Them?’ He flapped a tattered leather gauntlet. ‘Bah! They been watchin’ us for some time now.’
Murk gaped at his partner. ‘Then why didn’t you…’ Almost beyond words, he managed, resentfully, ‘And how would you know?’
Sour jerked a thumb to his chest. ‘Hey, I follow the Enchantress. Believe me – I know when I’m bein’ watched.’
Murk jumped on that. ‘There! You see! That’s exactly what I was getting at. She come and whisper in your ear?’
‘No, no. I keep tellin’ ya. Nothing like that.’ The squat fellow dug at one ear, smearing it in clay, while he tried to find the right words. ‘It’s more like a school of thought. Or a set a disciplines. Her way allows a deep access that kinda borders on Mockra, y’know? It’s a path she’s shaped that we follow. Get it?’ He peered up expectantly, brows raised.
Murk shook his head. ‘No. I don’t get it. That’s just a bunch of twaddle. Look, either she’s mistress of the Warren, or she’s a nobody.’
‘No! This ain’t Shadow. It ain’t a Realm – or a shadow of a real one.’ Murk flicked a gauntlet. ‘Houses, Holds, Realms. All that hoary old stuff. That’s the past. It’s all about paths now. No pledges or pacts or none o’ that stuff. It’s a new world, my friend.’
Murk was still shaking his head. ‘Can’t be that easy. Has to be a price…’
Sour just shrugged his humped shoulders.
‘Well – why didn’t we cross, then?’
‘That? Oh … I didn’t like the water. Gave me a bad feeling.’
Back at the column Burastan was waiting for them. She saluted Yusen then crooked a finger to call over Murk and Sour.
‘You two … maybe you could keep it down. I can’t hear the volcanoes or the stampeding elephants.’
‘Sorry, Bannister, ma’am,’ Sour mumbled.
The woman shook her head in disgust and stalked off. She threw over her shoulder: ‘And don’t wander so far from our guest.’
Sour threw up his dirty hands. ‘You called us…’ But she was gone. He turned his hurt gaze to Murk. ‘That gal. What’d we ever do to her?’
‘Don’t know. Why don’t you ask her one of these days?’
‘Yeah. Maybe.’
Murk just rubbed his gritty aching eyes. Ye gods …
* * *
That night was his worst yet. There was no food to be had at all. The scouts reported that something had scared off all the game. Murk sat with his arms wrapped around his knees. He sucked morosely on a knuckle of leather cut from a belt. At least when the rain started up they’d have some water to drink. Problem was all that fluid just went straight through him like a sieve. It came out looking exactly the same it did going in.
He and Sour traded off watches through the night. It was his turn when Yusen emerged from the sheeting rain to crouch down where they’d curled under the cover of a great towering tree.
‘We’re missing a patrol,’ he said, peering from beneath the dripping rim of his helmet.
Murk unclasped his knees. ‘I didn’t sense anything. How many?’
‘I’m not blaming you. Five. Scouts say the trail just up and disappears.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
The ex-officer looked offended. ‘What do I want you to do? I want you to find them, that’s what.’ He waved to the rain and Burastan emerged from the gloom. ‘Take a squad.’ The lieutenant nodded. Yusen jabbed a finger to him then jerked a thumb.
Murk took a deep breath to gather his strength then pushed himself awkwardly to his feet. He spat out the piece of leather he’d tucked into his cheek. Burastan waved him onward. He held up a hand for a pause. He stepped over a root as tall as his knees to find Sour nestled in where the root joined its fellow. If he hadn’t known the man was there he’d have passed right over him; mud-smeared, he resembled just another fat knot of wood. He poked Sour’s shoulder and the fellow jerked as if stung.
Eyes opened to glisten among the caked mud, leaves and twigs. ‘What d’ya want?’
‘Mind the store. I gotta go.’ And he gestured to where Burastan stood waiting in the rain. Sour goggled at the woman, his eyes growing huge. ‘Right…’
Murk wondered at his partner’s reaction until he got closer to the Seven Cities woman; her robes and top were near transparent in the rain. Against the pale milky skin of her jutting breasts her dark areolae stood out quite plainly. The woman impatiently gestured him onward again.
Burastan collected a squad. The men and women lumbered heavily to their feet and checked their weapons and shields. Then she curtly waved Murk into the jungle. ‘That way.’
Murk headed off, all the while wondering what this woman had against him and Sour. He walked slowly, and soon the lieutenant was level with him. ‘I’m not really the right fellow for this, you know,’ he told her, his voice held low.
Her answering snort told him she knew this damned well.
Huge drops pattered down from the canopy far above, slapping his head and shoulders. ‘You have any experience with large predators?’ he asked as he pushed aside broad leaves the size of himself.
‘Just men.’
Fair enough. Was this her problem? One of those man-haters? Yet she appeared to get along with the rest of the mercs well enough. And she followed Yusen’s orders without any resentment. She seemed to reserve her scorn for him and his partner.
Once he was far enough from the camp Murk halted. The squad spread out behind him and he felt Burastan’s warm disapproving presence just to his rear. He raised his Warren the slightest touch and felt it shimmering there near his fingertips.
‘What are you doing?’ Burastan whispered. ‘We’re supposed to be looking.’
‘I am.’
‘Really?’ The remark carried a wealth of contempt.
‘I am searching among the shadows.’
‘What for?’
Murk felt his patience finally slipping away. ‘For one that doesn’t belong. Now, if you don’t mind…?’
Her snort conveyed how little she minded.
Thanks to his Shadow talents the night was as clear as day for him. He sifted through the shadows nearby, finding nothing. Glancing back to Burastan, he saw in the woman’s clenched brows that she was a touch nervous out here in the dark so far from camp. Good. Let’s see how she likes stumbling about in the night. ‘This way, you say?’
She nodded, her jaws clenched. ‘Yes. The scouts found a blood-spoor but lost it in the rain.’
‘Let’s move on then.’ And he started forward.
After a brief hesitation, she followed, and the squad brought up the rear.
‘You don’t seem to have much time for me or Sour…’ he said as he pushed his way through stands of thick razor-sharp grasses.
‘Shouldn’t we be quiet?’ she answered, exasperated.
He stopped again to search among the shadows. ‘We’re making so much noise crashing through the underbrush that whatever it was is long gone by now. So…?’
Close to his side she scowled, a hand going to the grip of her curved sword. After a time she ground out, ‘I fought in the Insurrection. I have seen Malazan High Mages raise their might. I felt the Whirlwind and saw it brought low. I grew up hearing stories of Aren’s fall.’ Her gaze shifted from scanning the jungle and she made a show of looking him up and down. ‘You two. You’re a pathetic joke. That’s what you are. The might of Malaz…’ She snorted her contempt once again.
Ah. A touch bitter, are we? Well, we all have our stories. Fought in the Insurrection, did you? Which side, I wonder …
He gestured ahead. ‘A bit further.’
‘Wait.’ She waved up two of the escort. ‘Take point.’ The men nodded, hefted their large shields and drew their swords.
Here, the undergrowth was thin; the canopy so dense as to cut off all hint of the overcast sky. The ground was a slick morass of reddish clay. Murk was no farmer but so far the soil, if you could call it that, didn’t strike him as particularly fertile. Rich soil, so he understood, had to have rotting plant matter mixed up in it. This soil – or dirt – possessed none. The insects, fungus, mould and such seemed to immediately eat up most of the fallen vegetation, leaving the soil as desiccated and lifeless as any desert.
Their crawling progress slowed even further as the two guards, practically blind in the dense gloom, edged their way forward. ‘This is absurd,’ he whispered to the lieutenant. ‘Let me go ahead. I’m the only one who can see.’
‘Can’t have you wandering off.’
‘So you do care…’
The tall woman glared down at him. ‘Yusen would have my head.’
‘And this Yusen … ex-Sixth Army?’
She gestured impatiently ahead. ‘Stay focused.’
They had arrived at the base of a particularly ancient tree. As broad as any peasant’s hut, its fat trunk supported its own forest of hanging creepers. Here Murk sensed something and he raised a hand for a pause. Then he cursed, realizing no one could see. ‘Wait,’ he murmured to Burastan. The woman gave a low whistle and the guards all stilled. ‘Spread out,’ he mouthed low. Another whistle and the patrol shifted to establish a perimeter.
Murk eased his awareness just the merest touch into Shadow. He began to search among the shapes cast recently. Fat drops pummelled him here beneath this giant tree, slapping his shoulders and head. After a time he found something; or rather, something flitted past him so fast he almost missed it. A strange Shadow. Humanoid, it was. Yet as he watched it move it bent down, hunched, then leaped, springing, to fly away in a great bound, clearly outlined as an immense cat.
Murk grunted his dread as if punched. Bad news. A kind of Soletaken or D’ivers. Just like Trake, Rikkter or Ryllandaras. Call it what you will. Way out of our class.
‘Murk,’ Burastan whispered from nearby.
Normally, enmeshed as he was within his Warren, he would have ignored such an interruption, but there was something in the woman’s voice. Something he’d never heard before. Blinking, he opened his eyes on to the jungle and hissed impatiently, ‘What?’
The lieutenant appeared to have lost some
of her colour and she raised a hand to indicate his shoulder. He glanced and grunted once again. The fat drops that had been punishing him here amid the thick vines were not rainwater. He slowly raised his gaze and it took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. Above him, upside down and gutted like butcher’s carcasses, their arms slowly swinging, dripping blood from their fingertips, hung the missing patrol.
Murk lowered his stunned gaze to Burastan. She now had her blade out though he’d not heard her draw it. Carved glyphs ran down its length and red enamel or paint gleamed in the delicate script. Red, Murk realized. She’d been of the Seven Cities Red Swords.
‘Locals?’ the woman breathed, peering about, her eyes bright.
Murk swallowed to talk past the acid choking his throat. ‘You could say that.’
* * *
That morning Yusen ended all patrols. He kept everyone except the scouts close to the column. Murk kept a wary eye on his partner after the man’s claim that he could sense the locals. They all knew they were there – question was, how close and how many.
He noticed the crab-legged fellow peering about at the jungle far more anxiously than before. He was pulling repeatedly on his helmet and rubbing his dirty hands on his flapping trousers, all the while sneaking sidelong glances into the leaves. Murk sidled closer to murmur, ‘Who is it?’
‘Our friends. All around us now.’
‘All around? Then why haven’t you—’ At that moment the order came back for a halt. Troopers waved the pair forward.
They arrived to find Yusen in the cover of a copse of trees. ‘Reception committee ahead,’ he told them. ‘You’re with me.’
‘They’re all around,’ Sour warned.
The captain grimaced his displeasure. ‘Yeah. Our scouts and theirs been playing tag all day. Let’s see if we can come to an understanding before someone gets hurt.’
Murk emphatically agreed, as it was his thinking that that someone would most likely be them.
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 293