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

  Damn. Thought I had him there. Point to him. Golan returned to tapping the Rod of Execution behind his back. ‘And no enemy actions whatsoever? Any reports?’

  Thorn rummaged through the misshapen bulging bag at his side, withdrew a roll of parchment. ‘No enemy troops, scouts, personnel or forces sighted so far, Magister.’

  ‘Other than those monsters, who, I am given to understand, are known as her children.’

  Thorn peered lower down the sheet. ‘I have them listed under free agents. Would you have me reassign them?’

  ‘I would not presume to be such a burden.’

  The Principal Scribe blinked up at him innocently. ‘We all have our burdens to bear, Magister.’

  By the ancients, I walked into that one. Today’s exchange to him. Golan pursed his lips as he studied the river’s sluggish course. ‘Your entry, then, for today?’

  Principal Scribe Thorn thrust the scroll into the bag and slipped free another sheet. ‘The glorious Army of Righteous Chastisement continues its advance, crushing all enemies within its path,’ he read.

  Golan’s brows rose even higher. ‘Indeed. Crushing them. Beneath the wheels of our immobilized wagons perhaps. Thorn, we have yet to meet any of the enemy.’

  ‘And are crushing them all the more easily for it.’

  Golan tilted his head, considering. ‘True. Their oversight, then. This not showing up business.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Golan slapped his hands together, the rod between. ‘Good. Glad to be informed of our glorious advance. Almost all our stores are rotted or abandoned. Our labour force is more than halved. The sick troops outnumber the hale and we have yet to even meet the enemy. All the while our useless Isturé allies merely wander alongside us. Our fate is obviously assured, Thorn.’

  The Principal Scribe beamed. ‘Your unflagging resoluteness is an inspiration, Magister.’

  ‘An obligation of command, Scribe. Now, if you will excuse me, I really should go and order people about.’

  ‘The troops breathlessly await, I am sure.’

  Golan half turned back, almost meaning to call the scribe on that last observation, but in the face of the man’s bowing and servile smiling he could only nod as if to agree with the sentiment – however it might have been intended. He headed back to the column. Must try another tack. Inscrutable obtuseness, perhaps. No, that would allow him full rein. Deliberate contrary misunderstanding then. Yes. That might gain me some ground.

  He waved to waiting officers. ‘Start the labourers building rafts.’

  The officers bowed. One dropped to a knee before him. ‘And the troops, Lord Thaumaturg?’

  Golan paused, frowned his uncertainty. ‘Yes, what of them?’

  Head still bowed, the officer continued, ‘Shall they lend a hand with the preparation of the rafts? It would speed construction greatly.’

  ‘By the Wise Ancients, no! They’re soldiers, not labourers. Really – ah…’ To his great discomfort Golan realized he had no idea whom he addressed.

  ‘Sub-commander Waris,’ the man supplied, intuiting Golan’s predicament.

  ‘Yes, Waris. Really, man. Simply because we are hard pressed here in this barbaric wasteland we mustn’t set aside the distinctions of civilized life.’

  ‘Of course, Master.’

  Golan tapped the Rod of Execution while peering about. ‘Good. Now, set me on my way to the infirmary tents.’ The sub-commander urged forward a trooper.

  * * *

  The ranking surgeon was reluctant to direct Golan onward to where awnings hung over shapes laid side by side on the jungle floor. ‘There is not much time left him,’ the man observed as he wiped the excess blood and gore from his hands and shook them to spatter the trampled grasses and ferns. His apron hung wet with the fluids from his sawing and cutting and this too dripped to the ground. The instruments of his crude trade hung clanking from a belt over his leather apron and were likewise smeared in gore: knives, probes, awls, chisels, and saws of various sizes.

  Golan understood that in other cultures these men and women, chirurgeons, doctors, mediciners, call them what you will, were often held in high regard for their knowledge and, presumably, concomitant wisdom. But among the Thaumaturgs they were simply considered skilled labourers, no more important than accomplished seamstresses or glaziers. They merely cut and sewed the flesh. They were no better than carpenters of muscle and bone.

  ‘All I could do was have him choke down a dose of the poppy and leave him to dream his last hours away in peace.’ The man took up a file that hung from a leather cord looped at his belt and began sharpening the teeth of one of the saws. He frowned at the short instrument, spat upon it, then rubbed it on his apron leaving it – in Golan’s estimation – no cleaner than before. His motions were tired and slow and his eyes were sunk in dark circles. He was clearly exhausted and buried in work.

  ‘Thank you, surgeon. That is all.’ The man bowed and turned away to return to the operating table where his assistants held the limbs of his current patient. ‘What was it, may I ask?’ Golan added.

  ‘Infection, blood-poisoning, gangrene,’ the surgeon said, and he gestured to the soldier on the table to indicate that it was all too common. Then he raised the saw and nodded to his assistants. They tensed and the soldier between them sent up a gurgling howl from behind the wide leather gag buckled over his mouth.

  Golan headed off, tapping the Rod of Execution behind his back as he walked. Infection. How sad. That one aspect of the flesh that had so far eluded Thaumaturg control. Some theorized that contaminants transferred to the blood whenever it was exposed to the air, as from a wound or puncture. Others insisted that it was an imbalance within the fluids and humours of the body itself. And the human body was a bag of so many such various fluids sloshing and oozing about. Just look at the pancreas and the gall bladder: no one’s even certain what it is they do. The liver flushes the blood; that much has been established with reasonable certitude. But the pancreas? And why in the name of all ancients are there two kidneys? They really must be quite vital.

  Yes, Golan reflected, in agreement with the main course of Thaumaturg thinking: the human body was a truly disorganized organism. A monkey assembled by a committee, as one of his instructors once put it in the Academy. Best to attempt to perfect it – as had been the driving purpose of their inquiry through all the ages.

  He reached the most isolated of the awnings tied between the trees and knew then viscerally what he’d known intellectually: here was where the dying were sent. The stench of rotting flesh was indescribable. That and the reek of dressings heavy and sodden with pus, and of course the inevitable sewer stink of voided bowels. Fortunately for Golan, his training and conditioning rendered the fetid atmosphere completely irrelevant: one smell was as any other to him. And strikingly, thinking of scents, flower blossoms did lie tucked in here and there among the stricken in luminous splashes of orange and pink. The infirmary workers must be picking them and laying them here and Golan wondered: was it a gesture for the benefit of the dying, or the benefit of the workers?

  The dying lay in well-organized files. Officers, troopers and camp followers, male and female, crammed side by side. Golan was disconcerted to find among their numbers here and there common labourers in their plain dirty loincloths, and he frowned, displeased. The surgeons and their assistants appeared to be taking far too egalitarian an approach to their work. He would have to have a word with them – even if he agreed intellectually with the gesture: in the end all men and women were mere bags of blood and bile no different from one another. It was the principle of rank and class that mattered here. Not the underlying truth of commonality, demonstrated so very, well … messily.

  Walking the long files of dead and dying he found his man at last and knelt on his haunches next to him: U-Pre, Second in Command. He was pleased to see that the man still lived.

  ‘U-Pre?’ he urged, peering closer. The wet reek of gangrene hung as thick as cloth here but Golan was untr
oubled. ‘You are awake?’

  The eyelids fluttered open. The head turned and the eyes searched blankly then found his face. Golan noted the pupil dilation of d’bayang poppy. ‘Magister,’ U-Pre breathed, confused. He suddenly appeared stricken and moved an arm weakly as if to rouse himself. ‘My pardon…’

  Golan waved a hand. ‘Do not trouble yourself.’ He gave a heavy sigh, nodding at what he saw before him. ‘So … you are dying. I am saddened. I find I relied upon you a great deal.’

  ‘My apologies, lord,’ U-Pre responded, rather dreamily. ‘For the inconvenience.’

  Golan continued his slow thoughtful nod. ‘Yes. This necessity of actually having to give my orders irks me no end. What shall I do?’

  U-Pre whispered something too faint for Golan to decipher. ‘I’m sorry? What was that?’

  The man’s brows clenched in concentration and he murmured, ‘Sub … commander … Waris…’

  ‘Of course! Yes. The man has already addressed me. Shows subtlety and anticipation. Excellent choice. My thanks, Second in Command. I knew I could rely upon you.’

  U-Pre nodded, easing back in relaxation. Golan crouched, quite patient. He was no stranger to death and its stages. The man’s pulse at his neck and the strength of his inhalations indicated that he possessed some time yet. Ever the scholar of the body, Golan dispassionately noted movement among the far too old crusted dressings round the man’s thigh where one by one pale maggots wiggled free to drop to the ground. And so too shall we all go. Death is the true great leveller. We humans are perhaps no more than ambulant fertilizer due to deposit ourselves at some future unknown time and place.

  Chilling thoughts for anyone but a Thaumaturg whose eyes have been opened to the deepest wisdom of the underlying truths of existence. Human so-called dignity, individual identity, achievements and accomplishments, all are as nothing. The present is no more than a sweeping eternal fall into a futurity that none can know. To grasp this is to know profound humility. And profound indifference to one’s fate.

  Golan raised the blackwood Rod of Execution and pressed it to his brow. I salute you, good servant. The lesson of your life is … duty and equanimity.

  He stood to go. At his feet U-Pre stirred as if alarmed. He plucked at his side with a hand. Golan frowned his puzzlement and crouched once more. ‘Yes? What is it?’

  A corner of tattered parchment peeped out from beneath the man. Golan drew it free and recognized the expedition’s journal. He patted U-Pre’s shoulder, noted the searing fevered flesh. ‘Of course. Evidence. Without this it would be as if we never existed, yes? Very good.’ He tucked it under an arm. He touched the rod to his brow once more. ‘Farewell, friend.’

  * * *

  At the shore his yakshaka attendants surrounded him once again. Officers came running up, bowing on one knee. ‘Where is Sub-commander Waris?’ Golan called.

  An officer straightened and approached. Golan recognized him as indeed the one who had addressed him earlier. He studied the man’s teakwood-dark face, his narrow eyes, now downturned in respect, the thin dusting of a moustache at his lips, and a mouth that appeared to never give anything away. He wore the standard officer’s leather banded armour, its fittings staining it in rust now. His dark green Thaumaturg surcoat hung in salt-crusted tatters – as did everyone’s.

  ‘You are now second in command, Waris. Congratulations.’ The man bowed, saying nothing, and thus confirming Golan’s impression of him. He extended the water-stained pages of the journal. ‘The Official Expeditionary Annals. For you to keep now.’ The man raised both hands to receive the string-bound sheets. ‘You spoke to me of the troops lending a hand with the labour. These are dangerous revolutionary ideas you have, Waris. Have a care. However, considering the unusual extremity of our plight, I will allow them to lend a hand. We are behind schedule, as you conscientiously point out.’ He nodded to his second in command. ‘Your proposal carries.’

  The man bowed again and backed away, still bent. Five paces off he turned and walked quickly, beckoning the other officers to attend him.

  A man of few words. Too few, perhaps.

  Glancing about for his litter, Golan glimpsed Principal Scribe Thorn scribbling furiously on his curled sheets, his neck bent like a vulture’s, back hunched, blackened tongue clamped firmly between his crooked grey teeth.

  Or perhaps not.

  * * *

  Every day’s ride brought Prince Jatal and the rag-tag army of the Adwami thrusting ever deeper into Thaumaturg lands, and sank the prince ever further into an uneasy dread. Surely they were fools to believe they could dominate an entire nation with their few thousand horse. Yet the Warleader’s arguments were compelling. Somehow the man swept every debate, seemed to have anticipated every objection. Jatal felt as he had as a youth when facing a master across the troughs table. The man was an extraordinarily gifted tactician. These Thaumaturgs were utterly centralized, he constantly assured the council. Control that centre, he told them, and you controlled the provinces.

  Such political and strategic doubts were as nothing, however, compared to the searing agony he inflicted upon himself day and night when his thoughts turned to Andanii. Not since the sack of Isana Pura had she come to his tent and he wondered: was she done with him now that victory beckoned so close? Oh, once perhaps she had needed his cooperation to attain her goals. But now that he was no longer necessary, he was as nothing to her. With such jagged thoughts did he slash himself all through the day and on into the awful unbearable evenings while he thrashed and moaned amid his beddings.

  And yet … what of her whispered words of love and devotion when they had lain wrapped in one another’s arms, slick with sweat and deliciously breathless? What of those? How could anyone be that false?

  Fool! he berated himself. Look to your brothers! They rejected her. And rightly so. You are the weakling to have succumbed to her seductions. How she must have laughed at you. The eager puppy so easy to train!

  Nearly blind to his surroundings, Jatal reeled in the saddle, and was almost unhorsed as his mount jumped to avoid a rut in the stone road. Ganell came abreast and peered closely from under the rim of his scarf-wrapped helmet. ‘You are unwell, Jatal?’ he enquired. ‘Perhaps it is the heat – this interminable ride?’

  Sudden fury darkened Jatal’s vision. Does this fat oaf think me too soft? Scholar, he considers me? Philosopher? Unable to keep up?

  ‘I can ride as hard and long as anyone!’ he snapped.

  The chief of the Awamir pulled his fingers through his thick curled beard, his brows rising.

  Jatal pressed the sleeve of his robe to his sweaty heated brow. ‘No – my apologies, Ganell. Perhaps it is this quiet. I like it not.’

  The big man nodded thoughtfully. ‘Aye. Yet our Warleader says we are moving faster than their armies – for now. If we seize Anditi Pura then they will not know what to do, shorn of their Thaumaturg masters.’

  ‘So he assures us.’

  ‘Everything he has predicted, so has it fallen out. Yet he is an outlander. I understand your doubts. And we far outnumber his men.’

  Jatal gave his ally a reassuring nod. ‘Yes. Have you seen the princess?’

  ‘She rides with him now at the van. They are together much these days.’ He pulled at his beard. ‘You do not suspect connivance, do you?’ And he added, musing, ‘Yet with what would she bribe him?’

  Ganell missed the sharp narrowed look Jatal shot him. ‘Indeed,’ the prince answered tartly.

  ‘Three days to Anditi Pura,’ Ganell continued, oblivious of his comrade’s mood. ‘So says our all too imperious Warleader. Then we—’ The big man squinted ahead, raising himself high in his stirrups. ‘What in the name of the Hearth-Goddess…’

  Jatal broke off his musings to shade his gaze. Riders returning from far up the road – scouts by the look of them. He heeled Ash to surge ahead. When he arrived at the van the Warleader had already raised his hand for a halt. He joined the older man and the princess as the scouts babbl
ed their reports, breathless and pointing ahead.

  Frowning his disgust, the Warleader raised a gauntleted hand. ‘Silence!’ He pointed to one. ‘You. Report.’

  This one drew a deep breath. ‘Many men, sir. Across a narrowed way ahead. Ordered for battle.’

  Jatal tried to catch Andanii’s eyes but she kept her gaze fixed upon the foreign commander. His silvered brows rose. ‘Indeed. I am quite surprised. Someone in the capital has shown initiative.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Andanii breathed, sounding uncharacteristically nervous.

  The Warleader shrugged his broad shoulders and signed the advance. ‘We take a look.’

  * * *

  They cantered down a gentle valley slope, Jatal and Andanii at the head of the Elites, together with the Warleader. A dark mass stirred on the slope opposite. It lay athwart the road, while to the south a dense wood extended between the two forces. To the north, dark fields lay glistening in the mid-afternoon sun. Again the foreigner raised his hand for a halt then eased forward on the creaking leather of his saddle, studying the vista. He gestured to the north. ‘They have flooded the fields.’

  ‘I thought you said they would marshal no army,’ Jatal accused, sounding far more petulant than he’d intended.

  If the Warleader was offended, he showed none of it. ‘That is no army,’ he answered darkly.

  ‘What is it then?’ Andanii demanded, not to be put off.

  ‘A mob. Civilians. Farmers. City-dwellers. This only displays their desperation.’

  ‘Or determination?’ Jatal suggested. The Warleader turned a ferocious glare on him and for an instant Jatal experienced a startling sense of dislocation. He suddenly knew he’d seen the harsh graven lines of that disapproving face before. Exactly where, though, he could not place.

  The Warleader waved for the advance.

  ‘We charge?’ Andanii gasped, shocked.

  ‘Of course. Are you not lancers? Ride the filth down!’ And the Warleader kneed his mount to gallop ahead.

  Andanii urged her mount after him and Jatal, disbelieving, could only do the same. The two thousand Elites surged as well, followed by another five thousand mixed Adwami nobles, knights and lesser mounted retainers. The Warleader’s mercenaries, far poorer riders, brought up the rear.