They were on foot, and arose all at once from the stiff grasses and brush of the rolling hills. He halted and raised his hands to demonstrate his peaceful intent. They wore headscarves and treated hides laced together as leathers, and carried spears, with bone-handled knives at their waists. What Kyle noticed right away was the striking similarity they bore to himself: short and broad, skin a dark olive hue, and thin facial hair of moustache and mere tufts of beard.
‘I would speak with your hetman,’ he called out.
‘You walk alone across our land and then you make demands upon us?’ one answered. ‘You are either an arrogant fool or a warrior worthy of our attention.’
‘I intend no challenge…’ Kyle began.
‘Your presence here is a challenge,’ the spokesman answered, his face hard, and he nodded. Kyle spun in time to knock away a thrown spear. He turned back to find the spokesman almost upon him in a silent rush, knife out. He dodged two quick thrusts, retreating. ‘Do not—’ He got no further as the man bellowed a war-cry and attacked again.
Though he hated to do it, Kyle drew and brought his blade up to cut through the man’s forearm. The hand flew free, still gripping the knife. The surrounding party of men and women all flinched back a step. The man clamped his remaining hand around the stump and stared in stunned wonder. Kyle picked up the thrown spear and cut through the haft in one easy slice. He raised the shortened weapon high, circling. ‘Let me pass,’ he told them. ‘I mean no challenge to you. I merely wish to pass through.’
‘What blade is that you carry?’ the man breathed in utter awe.
Kyle glanced down. The curved blade glowed its pale honey-yellow in the afternoon light. He wiped it on his trouser leg and tucked it into his shirt. ‘It is mine. Given to me and for none other.’ He swept an arm to the south. ‘Go now, report to your elders what you have found. I suggest none of you return.’
The warband leader straightened. His face was ashen with pain, his hand tight around the bleeding stump of his wrist. Yet he scowled, unbowed. ‘We will go to tell of this. But we shall return. You will not find us craven.’ He flicked his head and the rest of the warband turned as one and jogged off.
Kyle wanted to howl: I care not if you are craven or brave! Just leave me alone! But he remained silent. He knew what the clan would do was not up to him – he could only hope to minimize any damage he might have to do.
The leader shuffled to where his severed hand lay, and bent to retrieve the knife.
‘Leave it!’ Kyle barked. ‘It is now mine. Is this not so?’
The man straightened. His face had darkened with the effort – and with rage. ‘It is so,’ he ground out through clenched teeth.
Kyle motioned him away. ‘Then go.’
For an instant Kyle thought the fellow might launch himself upon him, attacking with his teeth alone. But he let out an inarticulate snarl of frustration, his eyes blazing his fury, and backed away. Kyle waited until he had shambled from sight before bending down and collecting the knife.
Now he had two weapons. He set out jogging east.
* * *
The second night after that encounter he jumped awake to darkness and crouched, knife and blade out, circling. His feet raised dust as he shifted. The moon was out, a thin sickle. The Visitor was a fading green smear just above the western horizon.
‘Come out,’ he called. ‘Let us speak.’
A shape straightened from the brush, advanced. It was an older warrior. Grey streaked his hair. He carried a hatchet in each hand.
‘The blade glows,’ the man remarked. Kyle glanced down. The strange material of the sword seemed to collect the moonlight and shone now with a silver lustre. ‘What is your name,’ the man continued, ‘that I might recite it before the Circle?’
Kyle thought about that, then said, ‘Kylarral-ten is the given name of my youth.’
The man cocked his head, surprised. ‘In truth? Of what clan?’
‘The Sons and Daughters of the Wind, to the south.’
The man nodded. ‘We know them. We are the Silent People. What brings you to our land?’
Kyle did not take his eyes from the man as he slowly circled, his arms out, hatchets readied. He inclined his head a touch to the east. ‘I journey east and north. To the mountains.’
The man’s eyes shifted momentarily to the north. They glittered in the moonlight. He nodded. ‘Ah. I understand. A hero quest. You go to stand before the ancient ones. The ancestors. To prove your worth.’
‘Ancestors?’ Kyle said, surprised.
The man snorted his disgust. ‘Have you Children of the Wind forgotten everything?’
Kyle vaguely remembered stories. But his father had not been much of a one for stories. And he died when Kyle was young and then his mother’s brother had sold him into slavery. There had been little time to sit and listen to the old tales around the fire.
None of this did he say.
‘Our forefathers,’ the man continued. ‘You must recite your lineage to be allowed into the Greathall. There you shall fight and feast for ever, shoulder to shoulder with all the heroes of the past. And should you defeat me – here is my name. Swear you will not forget to commend me to our ancestors … Ruthel’en.’
Kyle nodded, quite serious. ‘I’ll not forget.’
‘Very good.’ Ruthel’en started circling once more.
‘We needn’t…’ Kyle began.
‘We must.’ And the man charged. But the charge was a feint. He halted abruptly to heave one of the hatchets. Kyle barely had time to raise his blade. Somehow it caught the thrown weapon, but not in time to prevent it from striking him a blow on the top of his forehead. Stunned, he just managed to deflect a disembowelling sweep across his midsection that raked through his jerkin, leaving a flaming eruption of pain behind.
Ruthen’el staggered back. His right arm hung useless, severed to the bone across the inside of the bicep. Panting, he reached across to take the hatchet into his left hand. Kyle stood weaving, blinking to clear his vision. Warm wetness covered the right side of his face, blinded that eye. He hugged his left arm across his stomach, terrified at what might happen should he let go.
Ruthen’el straightened, leaned forward to close once more. Kyle circled in a drunken stagger. He held the point of his blade straight out at the man. Ruthen’el batted the blade aside and closed. Kyle brought the sword around underneath, managing to catch the man’s side and slicing through. The shock of that blow caused Ruthen’el’s hatchet to strike flat and weak against Kyle’s shoulder, numbing the arm rather than taking his head off. Ruthen’el slipped backwards off Kyle’s blade, half eviscerated. He fell in the mess of his own blood and fluids and lay staring skyward, still conscious.
Weaving, Kyle sheathed his blade. He kept his arm pressed across his stomach and half knelt, half fell to the man’s side. Ruthen’el’s gaze found his face. ‘Remember me to the ancestors,’ he whispered wetly.
Kyle swallowed to gather spit to speak. ‘I will remember. You are the best I have ever faced. Tell me, this place of the ancestors … what do you call it?’
‘Joggenhome.’
Kyle straightened, wincing and gasping. Ruthen’el stared up at him. ‘You will not finish me?’
‘You are done.’ Kyle motioned to the east. ‘Perhaps you will last until the dawn and you will feel the warmth of the sun upon your face before you go.’
The man smiled dreamily. ‘A nice thought. But I think not.’
Kyle staggered to the dropped hatchet. He leaned down awkwardly to pick it up, then tucked it into his belt. Now he had three weapons. He shuffled off into the night.
* * *
The next day he washed his head wound at a waterhole. He inspected his torso and was relieved to see that it was merely a flesh wound: a slice across his upper stomach that had failed to sever any muscles. He washed it as well. He killed a lizard and cleaned it and ate the meat raw on the run.
The day after that the next warrior found him, a youth
. This one he finished without taking another wound. Though strong and quick, he was far less experienced than Ruthen’el. He did not even give his name. He did shock Kyle, however, and nearly gained an advantage, by calling him ‘Whiteblade’.
He jogged now, through the rest of that day and the night, straining to put as much land as possible between himself and the Silent People. The next morning he was limping across the grassland, hardly awake, staggering and stumbling, when someone leapt up directly before him, yelled a war-cry, and bashed him to the ground.
He lay dazed, staring up at a young woman in a full coat of battered mail. She held a longsword to his throat. ‘Why are you following us?’ she demanded.
He blinked to clear his vision. ‘What? Following? I’m not…’ He swatted the blade aside, struggled to rise. The woman watched him closely, the sword still extended. He eyed her, thinking that he must be seeing a mirage. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, amazed.
‘Never mind that. What of you? What are you doing here?’
He glanced to the west, covered his gaze to scan the gently rolling steppelands. ‘I … I was travelling east when the locals set upon me.’
She grunted her understanding, sheathed the longsword. ‘They’re a murderous lot. We wrecked on the coast. Been travelling ever since. I understand there’re towns on the east coast. Civilization.’
‘We?’
‘Myself, my brother, and others. Now there’s only me and my brother.’ She whistled loudly and a head popped up from the tall grasses. She waved him in. The lad, about eight, came to stand shyly behind her. He wore a tattered shirt and trousers that might once have been very rich indeed, sewn of crushed velvet and fine leather.
He examined the tall woman more closely: thick auburn hair, pale, high cheekbones, slim but athletic build, an old scar across her right cheek from a blade. Her accent hinted of north Genabackis. ‘Who are you?’ he again asked in wonder.
She surprised him by studying him narrowly, as if wondering why he would ask such a question. Then she shrugged. ‘No one. Just stranded travellers.’
‘You do have a name?’
For a moment he thought she wouldn’t answer, but she gestured to the lad. ‘Dorrin. I am Lyan.’
‘Kyle. You are of north Genabackis, yes?’
The young woman visibly flinched. She turned away, waved Dorrin off. ‘Get the gear.’
Once the boy had gone, she allowed, reluctantly, ‘Yes.’
He opened his arms to encompass the surrounding leagues of steppe. ‘May I ask what in the name of the jesting Twins are you doing here?’
She gave a snort of disgust. ‘Money, of course. Word came of gold in northern Assail. Rivers of it. We came to win our fortune. But,’ and she waved a hand, ‘fate had other plans for us. Damned ship’s master didn’t know the coast nearly as well as he claimed.’
‘No one does,’ Kyle remarked.
She nodded her agreement. ‘Forty of us made it to shore. Been fighting our way north ever since.’ Dorrin reappeared, dragging two packs. He dropped one before Lyan and shouldered the other.
‘Well, I’m headed east.’
She searched his face. ‘You would abandon us? Just like that? A woman and a child?’
He didn’t bother pointing out that she could probably cut him in half with her longsword. He glanced back to scan the western hills. ‘It’s best that I travel alone.’
‘Oh, I see. On the run and we would only slow you down. Is that it?’
‘No, it’s not … I’m being hunted.’
She eyed him up and down. ‘I can see that – you’re a right mess. But we’re being stalked as well.’
‘Trust me. It’s not quite the same.’
‘All trespassers are hunted down and killed here. There is only security in numbers. But go on…’ She waved him off. ‘I do not want any company I cannot rely upon.’ She started walking. Dorrin followed. The lad cast him a last wistful glance.
‘Well … where are you headed?’ he called.
She pointed a mailed arm to the north where foothills rose all alone like boulders from the surrounding steppes. ‘There may be water, and shelter.’
‘And then?’
She glanced over her shoulder, offered a mocking smile. ‘Then east … to this Sea of Gold.’
He pressed a hand to his forehead then hissed, yanking it from the swollen cut. Damn it to Hood’s own pit. Damned difficult woman! Could have just said … He cast one last glance to the west, then followed.
* * *
That evening they found a stream coming down out of the hills, and shelter in a cave. He watched the approach while she bedded the lad down. When she emerged, she wore only a long quilted gambeson, stained with sweat, and cut through in places from old sword-strokes. She glanced about in the twilight and frowned.
‘No fire?’
‘No.’
She grunted her understanding and returned to the cave to come out carrying her sword. She sat on a rock, unsheathed the weapon, and began working its edges.
‘A handsome weapon.’
‘Thank you. It was my father’s. I wish it had never come to me.’
‘You did not want it?’
She scowled as if this was an idiotic question. ‘My grandfather carried this weapon against the Malazans. As did my father.’ She took a heavy breath. ‘No. I prayed to the gods every day that it would never need to come to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘As am I.’
‘Your family fought the Malazans in the north. Where? In the west? The east?’
It was obvious to Kyle from her hesitation that she was reluctant to discuss it. Yet she drew a breath and said, ‘The east coast. Taph.’
Kyle dredged through what he’d heard of the northern Genabackan campaigns. Taph, he believed, had been among the very last cities to fall to the Malazans. ‘Those eastern Free Cities hired the Crimson Guard. Did you see them?’
She blew out a long breath. ‘Togg’s teeth, man. I was just a child. I met one. Blues was his name. He seemed kind. Why?’
He considered telling her that he’d been of the Crimson Guard but decided it best not to say anything. Given his present unimpressive condition she’d probably think him the worst liar she’d ever met. He shrugged. ‘Just curious. I’ve heard much of them.’
‘They’re fools.’
He raised his brows. ‘Oh?’
‘You can’t defeat an empire. It’s just too damned huge.’
‘Then what have your family been doing all these years?’
She ran her sharpening stone down the blade’s length. ‘Only thing you can do when facing such a giant beast. Make your own little patch of ground too much trouble to bother with and it’ll just lumber on and swallow someone else.’
He thought about that. Sound, he supposed. Provided everything you cared for hadn’t been swallowed yet. He realized, with a small start, that once more he’d taken hold of the amber stone hanging about his neck and was rubbing it between finger and thumb as he considered his options. He let his hand fall.
A call sounded then from the dark and he stilled, listening. Lyan also froze, her hand poised above her weapon. It called again. Neither beast nor bird. It was a girl’s voice in a rising and falling song, taunting from the night: ‘White … blade…’ it beckoned, ‘white … blade…’
His gaze went to Lyan. She closed her hand on the grip of her weapon. He signed a negative, shot his gaze to the cave. She nodded and began backing away to the cave mouth. He went out to meet the challenger.
She stood plainly lit in the open among the monochrome grasses under the moon’s watery silver light. He pushed his way to her through the knee-high stiff blades, thinking Ruthen’el must have lasted far longer than he’d imagined. Long enough to talk to whoever it was who had found him.
When he was close enough, he shouted: ‘Listen, whatever your name is – just turn around and head home. I’m tired of this. I don’t want to kill—’
S
omething crashed into his head from the side and the next thing he knew he was staring up, blinking, at two faces peering down at him. What was strange was that the faces were practically identical. He wondered whether he was seeing double.
‘We could’ve killed you,’ one girl said.
‘But we want you alive,’ said the other.
‘For the moment,’ finished the first.
Kyle felt his head; his fingers came away dark and wet. A birding arrow, or a sling stone. He felt for his weapons, but they were all gone. One of the girls, he saw, carried the sheathed sword.
‘We want you to take our names with you,’ the second said, ‘so that you can tell our forefathers and foremothers who killed you.’ She pointed to herself: ‘I am Neese.’
‘And I am Niala,’ said the one holding his blade. ‘You killed our cousin and our uncle.’
‘Ruthen’el will be ashamed to hear you avenged him with an ambush,’ Kyle croaked.
‘You killed all the ones with honour,’ Neese said. ‘We decided to win instead. Isn’t that so, Niala?’
‘It is so, Neese.’
Niala hefted the blade. ‘So this is it … We have heard the stories. I will use this to cut you to pieces. Then it will rest among our clan heirlooms as proof of our power.’ She took hold of the sheath to draw it.
‘Careful with that,’ Kyle warned. ‘You have to know how…’
Sneering, Niala yanked – and the blade slid through the leather and wood of the sheath taking her fingers with it. She stared at the streaming bloody stumps of her four fingers then screamed, dropping the blade to clench her hand.
Kyle lashed out with his foot, catching Neese in the knee as she leaned to take the weapon. She fell. He threw himself on her and they wrestled for the blade. Something crashed against Kyle’s head. Once more stars burst in his vision: it was Niala, standing over him, her crippled hand gripped in the other.
‘Bastard,’ she hissed, and drew back her foot for another kick.
A war-cry froze her for an instant. Something silver blurred the air over her shoulders and her head toppled from her neck. Blood jetted. Neese screamed. Lyan lunged, turning the blade, and impaled the other sister to the ground through her chest. Kyle climbed awkwardly to his feet.
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 355