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

  The sailor fell back, scowling. Knife scars on his cheeks and chin twisted and paled a ghostly white as they stretched. ‘He would meet you to discuss the matter. He would have you come on board.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight. Tomorrow. Whenever,’ and he echoed Kyle’s indifferent shrug.

  ‘Then I will come this night.’

  ‘We would require payment before we push out,’ he warned, and he thrust his chin forward once again.

  Kyle stood, tossed a coin to the table. ‘That is for your master and me to discuss, I should think.’

  He left the tavern not even glancing back. The fellow had made his disapproval obvious. There was nothing more to discuss. He headed to the wharf, or rather series of wharves. For Kevil, as he had discovered, like all Mare cities, was really nothing more than a land-based depot and servicing centre for their extraordinary, apparently unsinkable, galleys.

  At least, he reflected, they may not sink but the Moranth certainly proved that they do burn.

  He walked the uneven cobbles of the wharf’s main way. It bore ruts from centuries of foot and cart traffic. The cortex of many stones had eroded through to the creamy brown flint beneath. Through the evening gloom of clouds, smoke and mist he could just make out the looming shapes of the nearest moored vessels. All thrusting so tall and proud their sculpted galley bow-figures of waves, dolphins, and, of course, the obligatory women.

  Well … maybe not quite so proud these days.

  The famed galleys of Mare, when not drawn up for repairs, were each housed in their own slip flanked by piers allowing easy access to the long slim vessels. The effect of the league-long line of such berths was of a great set of teeth deployed ready to bite the waters of the bay.

  Dragging steps behind announced the resentful sailor following. Kyle searched for and found a lad lounging among the piled cargo of boxes and bales. He approached; the lad made a show of ignoring him. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m looking for the Lady’s Luck.’

  A lazy sullen gaze scoured Kyle up and down. The gaze slid away. ‘Her mate’s a knife thrust behind you.’

  ‘Where’s his ship?’

  The lad just smiled his contempt and crossed his arms, leaning farther back.

  Calm, Kyle, he reminded himself. Calm. It’s worth it to get out from among these ignorant inward-looking people.

  He headed on. Movement on his left and the mate appeared. He decided to give the man another chance. ‘This direction, I assume.’

  The mate said nothing.

  So, am I right or wrong? If they reached the end of the wharf, he decided he’d throw the man off.

  After a long silent walk, interminably long it seemed to him, the mate edged his head over and muttered a grudging, ‘The Lady’s Luck.’

  A tiny orange glow at the raised stern deck marked a lit brazier. Kyle stepped down into the longship, edged along the narrow seating of the oarsmen up on to the central raised walkway, and climbed the seven slim steps that led to the open stern deck. The mate followed all the way.

  Here Kyle found two men, one old and one young, each wrapped in furs against the chill of the passing winter, roasting titbits of meat on skewers over the brazier.

  The older one, a great boar of a man with a thick black head of curly hair and beard to match, eyed him while he licked his fingers clean, one at a time. His dark face carried the scars of decades of fighting and exposure to sun and wind. The younger’s face was smooth and pale; Kyle hazarded a guess that he had been to sea rarely if at all. The lad glanced from his elder, his father perhaps, to the mate, then to Kyle, and back round again.

  ‘You are this foreigner speaking of lands to the east?’ the elder rumbled.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I am Tulan Orbed, Master of the Lady’s Luck.’ He waved a great paw to the lad. ‘This here is my nephew, Reuth.’

  ‘Kyle.’

  ‘The black storm cloud behind you is Storval, First Mate.’

  ‘We’ve met.’

  ‘Ha! I intuit from your tone that you certainly have. So gloomy is he we name him Black Storval.’ He urged Kyle to him. ‘Come, come. Set yourself at ease. We see so few foreigners here. Tell us of the world beyond Fist. You have seen these distant shores to the east?’

  Kyle was rather taken aback to meet such a cosmopolitan attitude. He sat easily enough, but to one side, so as not to put his back to the ill-tempered mate. Tulan chuckled at this, and winked. Then, peering up sharply, he said, ‘Another horn and more ale, Storval.’

  The man scowled even more but ground out a nod. ‘Aye, captain.’ He thumped down the stairs.

  Tulan extended a wood skewer to Kyle, who took it and jabbed a scrap of meat that he then held over the glowing brazier coals. ‘I have seen them.’

  The captain’s gaze flicked to his nephew. ‘Indeed. And does this land have a name?’

  ‘It does. The southern lands are known to some as Bael. The northern some name…’ and here he paused, wondering whether to mention the damned ill-omened name at all. But he ploughed on, thinking, wind toss it, no one from Korel would know it anyway: ‘… Assail.’ The captain eyed his nephew once more. But the lad was watching Kyle. A faintly amused smile pulled at his mouth. They know this already, he realized. They just wanted to see if I’d lie about that name. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Where were you there? A port? Did you land?’

  Kyle nodded while he ate his sizzling cut of meat. Storval returned, set down a third drinking horn and a fat skin. Kyle used the skewer to pick his teeth. ‘A city on the east coast. Kurzan.’

  Again, Tulan eyed his nephew, who nodded.

  Kyle turned to the unprepossessing pale blotchy-faced lad and looked him up and down. ‘You’ve been there?’

  He blushed furiously, his face almost glowing, and shook his head.

  ‘Reuth’s a scholar,’ Tulan explained. ‘But a particular kind of scholar. I paid a fortune to send him to poke through dusty records in Jasston and Jourilan. Isn’t that so, Reuth?’

  The lad nodded vigorously.

  Tulan picked up the skin and squeezed a stream of ale into the horn. He offered it to Kyle. ‘His passion is cartography. Know you this line of knowledge?’

  Kyle accepted the horn, nodding. ‘Charts and maps.’

  ‘Indeed. He is only happy when bent over dusty sheets.’ The captain glanced to his nephew. ‘Quite the secret hoard of charts they have in Jourilan, confiscated from every vessel that ever landed or wrecked itself upon the coast. Isn’t that so, Reuth?’

  The lad leaned forward, all eagerness. ‘Yes. And you, sir, your accent is not Malazan, sir. Where are you from? Is it Seven Cities?’

  The captain raised a paw as if to backhand the lad. ‘Not now, dammit to the Lady’s grave!’ Reuth flinched away. ‘Apologies,’ Tulan growled. ‘The lad has spent too much time among scrolls and records and not enough time crewing among men – some of whom may not look kindly upon questions regarding their past.’

  Kyle gave the young man a reassuring smile. ‘I welcome curiosity. I find it … refreshing.’

  Tulan grunted a laugh. ‘No doubt you do here along these shores!’ He wiped his greasy hands on his furs. ‘Now to business. How many days to cross – by your estimate?’

  ‘Due east of here? A fortnight at the least, I should think. With favourable winds.’

  Again the captain eyed his nephew, who answered with a curt nod of approval. ‘Good, good. Such a crossing is as nothing for us of Mare.’

  Yet none of you have ventured it, Kyle reflected. On the other hand, perhaps some have … they’ve simply never returned. He sipped the ale and found it even worse than he’d anticipated; he grimaced. ‘And is your goal – pure exploration?’

  Tulan guffawed anew. His toothy grin was conspiratorial and he hunched forward, lowering his voice. ‘Come now, friend. That you seek these eastern lands proves you’ve heard the rumours.’

  ‘Rumours?’

  The big man sat back and frowned behin
d his greasy beard. ‘No need to play things so close. We of Mare are traders, sea-scavengers. Aye, I’ll even admit it openly here upon the deck of my own good ship … marauders and raiders. No need to pretend with me.’

  Kyle had no idea what the man was getting at. He swirled the dregs of the ale in its horn, considered dumping it over the side. Rumours? There were plenty of rumours surrounding Assail. Yet these were all of a kind that would send you fleeing it. Not seeking passage to it. He slowly shook his head, all the while keeping his gaze steady on the man. ‘I’m sorry, Tulan, captain. But I have heard no recent rumours.’

  Tulan once more waved a hairy hand at his nephew. ‘Foreign gods, man. Even Reuth here has heard, in Kor! The ports are seething with the news.’

  Kyle continued to shake his head.

  Reuth cleared his throat. ‘A word, Uncle, if I may?’

  ‘What?’ Tulan grunted, now all ill-humour.

  ‘Our friend is a foreigner in these lands, yes? No one here would speak to him regarding anything. Let alone pass on choice bits of news, or even gossip to while away the time.’

  The captain’s dark masses of brows rose as he considered his nephew’s words. He slammed his horn to the keg he used as a table. ‘Of course! No one would pass such news along to some damned foreigner – ah, no insult intended.’ By way of apology, he held out the ale-skin and Kyle could only answer by extending his horn for refilling. ‘An offering to our journey!’ Tulan laughed as he overtopped the horn, spilling ale to the deck. ‘And a propitiation to the new gods to come. Though,’ and he lost his smile, ‘after the Lady, we’ve quite had our fill of gods in this region, I should think.’

  ‘The news then?’

  Tulan raised his horn to the toast. Reuth joined, and Kyle also, though inwardly dreading more of the brackish drink. ‘To a profitable, ah … venture, friend. For it is all the news that gold has been discovered in the northern mountains of the lands across the Bloodmare Sea. Great wide fields of gold. Enough wealth to make kings of us all.’

  So astounded by this claim was Kyle that he mechanically threw back his drink and had to force the vile liquid down. Ye gods! Gold in northern Assail? This news would draw thousands from all across the lands. Especially if word of it had reached even isolated and inward Korel. ‘When was the strike made?’ he asked, clearing his throat and coughing.

  Tulan waved the horn airily. ‘Well, admittedly, it has taken some time for the news to come to us. Apparently, word first came from a shipwreck on the Jourilan coast. Some people heralding from some backward land named Lether. The crew had heard of it first hand from a stricken vessel they’d come across and … ah … rescued.’

  Kyle shook his head, unconvinced. ‘Tall tales to save their skins.’

  Tulan winked. ‘So too would I have thought. But then similar news came by way of a vessel that put in for repairs on the north Fist coast. This ship hailed from Falar, north of Malaz. Know you it?’

  ‘I know it. Excellent mariners, the Falari.’

  ‘Yes. They claimed to have landed on an island within spitting distance of the Assail mainland only to find the place nearly deserted. Entire villages empty. They questioned some oldsters who gave them the news … gold had been discovered in Assail. Everyone picked up and went after it.’

  Kyle raised his hands wide. ‘Then we are too late. These strikes are usually cleaned out in months. All the rich ground worth sifting gets claimed.’

  The captain winked again – it was an engaging gesture that seemed to say: ‘Yes, this may be so, but we are both men of the world and we know better…’ Kyle found himself warming to the old pirate – for pirate he had as good as confessed to being. ‘But this is Assail,’ Tulan said, pushing more meat on to his blackened skewer. ‘We know the tales of that land.’ Don’t we now, Kyle silently answered, and he shook his head at the dreadfulness of them. ‘Just so. Few will live to reach the fields, yes? And as to claims or ownership … well.’ The big man gave an eloquent shrug.

  Kyle knew this to be true. If the stories were to believed, no state existed up there to grant any rights of ownership, or to recognize any claims or stakes. It would be utter chaos. Armed bands would provide the only authority, and they answerable only to themselves. And as to those who already lived up there – petty warlords, pocket tyrants continuously at war with their neighbours – they could find themselves utterly overrun. Surely not even they could kill quickly enough to stem the tide soon to be breaking on their shores.

  He almost tossed back the last of his drink but stopped himself in time. He eyed the grinning pirate captain. ‘You plan to take a rich claim, empty it, and cut your way back to the Lady’s Luck?’

  Tulan blew on the cooked meat then pulled it off the skewer with his teeth. ‘Nothing as crude as that,’ he answered, chewing. ‘Godsblood, man, you almost make it sound like hard work.’ He offered his nephew a wink and topped up his horn. ‘Nothing like that. Think it through, man. We don’t do any of that hardscrabble digging! We let other poor unfortunates do all the hard work sifting and washing and transporting and such. We’ll just lie in wait along the coast, won’t we? After all, they’ll want to get it out of such a godsforsaken pesthole.’ He opened his hands wide at the obviousness of it. ‘That’s when we liberate it.’

  ‘Ah, I see. An elegant plan.’

  Tulan grinned his agreement. ‘Thank you, my friend.’

  ‘So you have a crew.’

  ‘Oh yes, the prettiest gang of murderers and hireswords. Why, we even have a squad of ten Stormguard who are – how shall I put it – dissatisfied with the new regime.’

  That alarmed Kyle, and he must have not made a good enough job of disguising his reaction as the captain held up a hand. ‘You are Malazan. I understand your concern. But do not worry. All that is the past, no? We are now brothers together in this venture for gainful capital, yes?’

  Kyle allowed a wary smile. ‘Of course.’ Struck by a new thought, he studied Reuth. ‘So you know the coast…’

  The lad blushed and lowered his gaze. Tulan stroked his beard and grinned like a proud uncle, saying, ‘We have the best maps outside Assail itself, I am sure.’

  Reuth dared a glance. ‘The names,’ he whispered, as if frightened. ‘I don’t understand the names. Have you heard those names?’

  Kyle nodded his agreement. Yes. Those names haunted the stories of his youth. All of them ghost stories. ‘Wrath…’ he murmured. ‘Wrack … Dread … Black Pit … the Anguish Coast.’

  Tulan grunted, but not unkindly. ‘You’re young, Reuth.’ He held another titbit of meat over the brazier. ‘We may be ignorant provincials here in these lands, friend Kyle, but I know a tale or two. I’ve heard tell of lands where people name their children “Fool”, “Louse”, or even “Splitnose”. Know you why they would do such cruel things to their own children?’

  Kyle smiled his understanding. ‘To turn away the attention of the gods – or demons.’

  ‘Exactly. So, tell me, friend Kyle, if you wanted to ruin a place what would you name it?’

  His smile twisted to its side. ‘I suppose I’d tout it as Paradise. Or Bounty.’

  ‘Exactly. And if you wanted to keep people away?’ Tulan turned his questioning gaze on Reuth.

  The lad nodded. ‘I see.’

  ‘Or perhaps they are just awful places,’ Kyle suggested.

  Tulan burst out in a great bout of laughter. ‘Perhaps indeed they are, friend Kyle.’ He rubbed his hands again on his already greasy furs and leathers. ‘So. You will bunk here on the Lady’s Luck, yes?’

  Kyle motioned that he had no objection.

  ‘You have gear? I could send Storval.’

  ‘No – no thank you.’

  The captain waved to Kyle’s side. ‘Need you another blade? We have plenty.’

  He could not stop his hand from going to his belt where he carried his sword wrapped in leather. ‘No. It is quite all right. I will repair it.’

  The big man shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Sto
rval will see you bunked. We’ll push out with tomorrow’s evening tide, yes?’

  Kyle rose. ‘Very good. Thank you.’ He bowed to the captain and noted how Reuth now could not keep his gaze from the wrapped blade at his side. He descended to the rowing deck. Tulan bellowed: ‘Storval! Rouse your worthless hide! See to this man’s berth!’

  While the first mate rubbed his eyes and stretched, Kyle stood with his hand still resting on his covered sword. He wondered whether these two had heard certain tales of the war against the Lady. Stories making the rounds of the invasion and rebellion. Of the Malazan commander Greymane, named Stonewielder here, and his foreign companion, and of two swords – one grey and one pale. The grey one was gone. The stuff of mere legend now. But the rumours also told of an ivory sword carried by a foreign warrior. A blade that could cut through anything. A sword he’d heard the stories here named Whiteblade. A weapon, they said, fit for a god.

  These stories were closer to the truth than even their tellers knew. For the blade came to his hand from the hand of the Sky-King Osserc himself, and Kyle was beginning to suspect just what it might be. The possibilities terrified him. And so he dared not leave it out of his sight, yet he dared not show it either. The burden of it was a curse. A damned curse. So had Greymane named the stone sword he had wielded. And now Kyle understood the man completely.

  He clenched the weapon in its leather wrap more tightly to his side. Storval motioned curtly to the steps down into the low-roofed storage cabin beneath the stern deck. ‘You may sleep here tonight,’ he growled, then smiled wolfishly and added, ‘But after tomorrow it’s the rowing benches for you – what say you to that, foreigner?’

  Kyle shrugged indifferently. ‘Beats the ground.’

  The first mate sneered his disbelief and waved him down.

  * * *

  Shimmer did not want to do it, but two months after returning from Jacuruku and the harrowing though successful expedition to that cursed land, she requested that a select few officers of the Crimson Guard meet her in the forest just north of Fortress Haven, Stratem.

  She realized that this decision had been some time in coming. These last months of indecision and inactivity on the part of K’azz had merely provoked it. Cal-Brinn and the Fourth remained trapped in Assail and still no steps were being taken to organize their rescue. K’azz had even been told that answers to what awaited the Guard in the future lay in those lands. Yet he did nothing. No vessels had been hired nor were efforts being made to begin construction. K’azz had simply disappeared once more into the wild tracts of Stratem’s interior.