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

  Jethiss joined them; the Andii had found a set of thick leather armour consisting of overlapping layers set with studs and bronze rings. Fisher nodded approvingly. The man rested his hands on the long handle of a twin-headed broad-axe. Badlands passed them on his way out, caught sight of the axe, and swore. ‘Gods, man, that monstrosity has rested on the wall since I was a babe! No one wields those clumsy things any more.’

  Jethiss shrugged modestly. ‘I’ll do my best. The haft is a hard wood, is it not?’

  ‘Aye. Ash. Why?’

  ‘I had simply hoped so.’

  Shaking his head, the Lost brother walked off.

  Three figures obscured the light from the entrance then marched within. Cal-Brinn led, followed by a man and a woman, nearly identical in battered coats of mail that carried the remnants of once having been enamelled or lacquered a deep dark red. Cal-Brinn saluted Stalker. ‘Our scouts report the enemy entering the valley. Their own scouts are already watching the hall from the woods.’

  Stalker nodded. ‘Very well. Everyone – take a skin of water and extra weapons and spread out.’

  Kyle had pulled on a hauberk of boiled leather, its leather sleeves sheathed in mail, and belted on a set of heavy fighting knives. Into the belt he now gingerly tucked the sheathed Whiteblade.

  When he looked up he saw everyone eyeing him, and he glanced down to see that the grip and pommel, carved from whatever unknown material, glowed now like ivory in the darkness of the hall. Feeling acutely ill at ease, he snatched up a spear and headed out, saying, ‘Yes … let’s go.’

  When they had been readying the defences, Stalker had explained how he wanted everyone to spread out around the circumference of the building. They would hold the earthworks for as long as possible before falling back to the hall. The invaders would no doubt set it alight. Once that happened, they were to make a break to the north out of the rear.

  That at least was the plan. It appeared more and more flimsy as Kyle gripped the cold wood of the spear-haft and watched the three columns of the enemy, accompanied by many skirmishers, smoothly spread out to encircle them many layers deep.

  The last stamp of marching feet resounded from the forest. Hundreds of breaths plumed the air. The front rank knelt a good spear-throw’s distance from the earthworks. All was silent until a nicker and a ringing of jesses announced a horse being urged forward.

  The mounted figure gently eased his way through the ranks until he was directly opposite the entrance. Kyle stood off to the right, just within ear-range, with a Crimson Guard swordsman on either side.

  ‘Let us talk,’ the man called.

  Stalker set one booted foot up on the earthworks and leaned forward on his sheathed longsword. ‘About what? The weather?’

  The enemy commander had a narrow, puckered look to him. He rode stiffly, was bean-pole lean and straight, and wore a mail coat that fitted him too loosely about the chest and yet was too short. His breath steamed as one edge of his lips drew up. ‘About your future – of which little remains.’

  Stalker pulled a set of heavy gloves from his belt and drew them on. ‘What is your offer, then?’ he asked, as if bored.

  ‘Drop your weapons and move on. Where you go, I care not.’

  ‘And who are you to make such demands?’

  ‘Marshal Teal. In the name of—’

  ‘Remember me, Marshal?’ Fisher’s voice shouted out, cutting the man off. Startled, Kyle glanced over to see the bard approach, a longsword at his side. The marshal’s eyes, already half hidden in their nests of wrinkles, slit even more. ‘You?’ he breathed. ‘How is it … what happened at the bridge?’

  ‘We escaped.’

  ‘Escaped…’ the marshal breathed, wonderingly. ‘We? Ah – I understand. Well, congratulations. I am pleased you emerged unhurt.’

  The bard bowed at the waist. ‘And now I would offer you advice, Marshal. Turn away this day if you wish to escape as well.’

  The marshal shook his head as if entertaining a fool. ‘I am sorry to see you in the enemy camp, Fisher. But do not think that because you are a songster it will save your life when all here are put to the sword.’

  ‘Even though my companion’s sacrifice purchased your life at the bridge?’

  ‘He did not save my life – he saved the lives of a third of my party. And it wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a request.’

  Now Fisher shook his head, but sadly. He crossed his arms. ‘That night, Marshal, I saw revealed the man behind the Letherii calculation of exchange and advantage. It is to that man I give warning. Sail away and live. The risks here far outweigh any potential gain.’

  Stalker muttered half under his breath, ‘You’re wasting your time.’

  ‘Is this the extent of your negotiation?’ the marshal demanded.

  Fisher gave a nod. ‘That is so.’

  Teal’s answering nod was curt. ‘Then in the name of King Luthal Canar of Goldland, I—’

  Stalker burst out laughing: ‘King who of what?’

  The marshal looked to the sky and tapped his fingers against his saddle. ‘King Luthal Canar – the new king of these lands. Which he has decided to name Goldland.’ He tilted his long thin hound’s head. ‘You don’t like it? We think it should attract settlers.’

  Stalker thoughtfully rubbed a finger over his lean jaw as he regarded the mounted marshal. At last he opined, ‘I’d name it Pompous Ass Land, myself.’

  The mocking smile fell from the marshal’s lips as his face paled. He gathered his reins. ‘Very well. None of you will see the dusk.’ He wheeled his mount about, bellowed, ‘Archers!’

  Kyle ducked as a fusillade of arrows came whistling straight over the earthwork mound to slam into the Greathall log walls. Crouching, Stalker laughed. ‘That got his shirt in a twist!’ Kyle glimpsed Fisher dodging his way back to his place in the ring of defenders.

  ‘Keep your head down!’ one of the Avowed shouted.

  ‘Let them fire,’ another called. ‘We can use the arrows.’

  Kyle kept one eye on the front ranks of swordsmen, searching for any motion that might reveal a charge. More arrows slashed the air above him. The banners of mist and vapours thinned as the sun rose, but the sky remained heavily overcast by a blanket of clouds that hung so steady and unmoving as to seem fixed about the mountains. Kyle shifted to lie with one shoulder in the cold damp earth. Even through the leather under-layers, the chain of his sleeve chilled his arm.

  The Avowed on his right, he noted, in a long mail coat, gripping two longswords, was a wiry young-looking woman with short dark hair under an iron dome helmet. He shouted, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Leena,’ she answered. She did not ask his name. Everyone here called him the name that made him wince each time he heard it.

  A loud deep horn sounded and an answering roar arose from the gathered ranks.

  ‘Here they come!’ Leena yelled.

  Kyle straightened and readied the spear he’d collected for just this moment.

  The ground seemed to drum as the solid mass of men came roaring and yelling. Most carried swords and medium-sized shields. Kyle scanned the ranks until he found the one who’d marked him. He bore a scruffy beard and his eyes were wild with rage and terror as he drove himself to the task of risking his life.

  Aye, my friend, Kyle answered to himself, like us all.

  He met him with the spear in his gut as the fellow slashed his way through the maze of pits and sharpened sticks. The man collapsed round the weapon and Kyle cursed. It was caught fast. The fellow’s neighbour hacked the haft, snapping it. Kyle thrust it at him as he lunged but the broken end wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the man’s leather hauberk and merely winded him. Kyle drew the white blade as the man straightened and was pushed forward by those closing behind.

  To his right, the Avowed mercenary, Leena, was clearing the mound in businesslike sweeps and thrusts, skilfully entrapping weapons between her crossed blades, counter-striking, and easily deflecting wild swings.

/>   The Letherii soldier before Kyle now held the high ground and he closed, chopping downward from his advantage. Kyle stepped inside the blow to take off the man’s hand just above the wrist. The fellow gaped, astonished. Then, enraged, he shield-bashed Kyle, pushing him back even further.

  ‘Hold the wall, damn you!’ Leena snarled, sounding more anxious than angry.

  The invaders did not press their advantage, however. These Letherii soldiers flinched and winced as forces behind them thrust and shouldered them aside. Kyle was amazed to find himself staring at the band of blue-cloaked Stormguard from the Lady’s Luck.

  Their captain pointed and yelled, triumphant. ‘Found you again, Whiteblade! Some day one of us will take you!’

  Kyle realized they’d wanted him dead all along. From the very moment they saw him. He now understood his mistake in his use of the weapon in his hand. Ruthlessness. Pure, bloody-minded callousness. He’d been too timid. To the Abyss with the limbs! Cripple and finish them!

  He took the man’s spearhead off then swung low and severed his leg beneath the knee. He returned the swing to slice through four thrusting hafts, and the second rank fared no better as Kyle now understood that to properly exploit this vicious weapon he had to set aside normal swordplay.

  He waded in, shield on his left, hacking through the spears, then forelimbs, taking any portion of anatomy within reach. Thighs, knees, it mattered not; the shock of the deep cuts slowed any opponent for the finishing return blow. He regained the earthworks, now a bloodied steaming heap of half-dismembered corpses.

  Still the rear ranks pressed forward. Sick of shearing through thrusting spear hafts, he waded onward down the steep side into the flinching ranks. Shorn lengths of hafts flew until he was met with arms, then shoulders, and the thighs of braced legs.

  The screams of the wounded now drowned out the clamour from any surrounding engagements. A hand yanked him backwards by his hauberk and he jumped to one side, swinging. Badlands’ raised forearm blocked his own just inside his grip on the white blade. The Lost’s eyes held his, close enough for their steaming breath to meld into one. ‘That’s enough, lad,’ he warned, urging him back. ‘Leave some for the rest of us.’

  Kyle spun to the ranks; only Letherii troopers remained, and these held off behind shields, swords raised. Their eyes, white all around, were filled with something Kyle had never before seen in any opponent: open dread. Badlands slowly walked him backwards.

  ‘Archers!’ came a familiar bellow.

  ‘Run for it!’ Badlands shouted and pelted up the mound.

  Kyle had time for three panicked steps in the yielding mounded dirt and a leap before arrows whisked the air over his back and punched the heavy logs of the Greathall.

  He lay panting in the muddy ground, his front wet with gore and pooled rainwater.

  ‘Up for another rush!’ Leena warned.

  Groaning, he staggered to his feet and hefted his shield, which, from the weight of it, seemed to have been transformed into lead. Badlands padded off to continue his watch on the defence. All about the ring of mounded dirt the new ranks of attackers came storming up, shouting and slamming swords into shields. He waited, tensed, the white blade readied, but none appeared at his section of the perimeter. No cursing wild-eyed soldier came charging up the slope.

  The Avowed on his left was a broad giant of a fellow who crashed his wide infantryman’s shield down on top of the smaller, lighter shields, bearing them low for thrusts over the metal rims or down on to heads and shoulders.

  Leena, on his right, had her hands full taking on a mass of pressing infantry. He half lunged, meaning to lend her his aid, only to catch himself, realizing that he dared not leave this section open and undefended. In any case, he couldn’t have gotten close enough – he knew well enough not to crowd a warrior who fought the two-swords style. She swung both full round for smashing, sweeping blows, never quite halting their blades’ figure-eight weaving over and under in a mesmerizing dance. Attackers who could have pressed round her flinched away when their paths took them too close to Kyle.

  When the wave eased the Letherii infantrymen backed away, dragging their wounded with them. The Avowed swordswoman came to him. She was heaving in great panting breaths, almost dragging her weapons behind her. She thrust one blade into the soft earth to dab at a cut across her mouth, then leaned over to spit out a red bloody stream.

  ‘Looks like we’ll have to move you to a new spot,’ she croaked, her voice sand-hoarse.

  Kyle offered his waterskin, which she took gratefully. ‘Where did you learn to fight like that?’

  After a long pull at the waterskin, she swallowed and said, ‘From my father. He was a veteran of the Iron Legion.’

  He’d heard the name once or twice. ‘The Iron Legion?’

  She looked annoyed. ‘You’ve not heard of it? The elites of the Talian Iron Crown?’

  Kyle blew out a breath. ‘Well, of course I’ve heard—’

  She waved the matter aside. ‘Never mind. Why should you have? The old emperor crushed them long ago.’ She pressed a fold of cloth to her cut mouth once more. ‘Hard for me to remember it’s all ancient history.’ She urged him off. ‘Find Cal before they come again. Tell him you should move.’

  The Avowed’s words had startled him for an instant, until he recalled that of course this woman might be older than his grandmother. He dipped his head in assent and jogged off.

  He passed the Andii, Jethiss, now gripping two short-hafted hatchets. He supposed the great broad-axe’s ash haft hadn’t held up after all. The man’s scavenged armour was notched and battered, but he appeared otherwise whole. He inclined his head as Kyle passed, his long black hair hanging loose, and greeted him with a murmured, ‘Whiteblade.’

  Kyle found that to be addressed in such a fashion, by such a man, made his breath catch and he nearly tripped, at an utter loss for words. Finally, he bobbed his head, muttering, ‘Jethiss,’ and hurried off. He found Cal-Brinn standing on the front entrance’s log steps. All about him arrows studded the logs like tossed quills while before him the air wavered and shimmered in ribbons of night. He saluted the Crimson Guard captain. ‘Rashan?’ he queried. Cal-Brinn nodded. ‘I’ve seen little of the Warrens here in Assail.’

  ‘The Elder Omtose is dominant here. It suppresses any other conjurings.’

  The roar of another charge arose from beyond the earthworks and Kyle spun. Arrows nipped the air only to whirr away from the wavering ribbons before Cal-Brinn. The captain motioned to them, murmuring, ‘The best I could do.’

  Kyle watched while the Avowed within sight, together with Fisher and Stalker, answered the charge. They resembled bobbing corks in a choppy sea, tossed and battered, about to be submerged. ‘We cannot hold,’ he told Cal-Brinn.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he granted. ‘Yet in battle every exchange is a potential surprise. No one can say what turn will come. Who knows?’ He descended the steps to stand close to him, and, leaning down to bring his face close, he whispered, ‘Have you not considered that it is they who might lose heart?’

  Kyle ducked his head, thoroughly chastened. But the captain softened his comment with a wink, and, bellowing a war-cry, drew his longsword and charged into the line next to Stalker. Kyle felt his blood rise and nearly sing in his ears at such a sight, and he took a fresh grip on the white blade and ran to join the fray.

  * * *

  It was late after the noon when Kyle next roused himself, blinking. He was only standing because he was leaning against the rough logs of the Greathall. His throat gagged him as if scraped raw, while his limbs hung numb yet screaming in the stinging, twitching pins of exhaustion. His shield was a battered wreck on his left forearm. He forced his fingers open upon the leather strap and let it slip to the ground.

  Badlands came jogging round the defences and joined him. The Lost brother was a mass of cuts and scrapes, a bloodied cloth was wrapped round his left upper arm and a severe gash across the side of his head had peeled back a portion of his s
haggy hair leaving that ear a mass of drying gore.

  ‘Well – we ain’t dead yet!’ the Lost greeted him with an elated grin.

  Kyle roused himself further. He had to wet his throat to answer, ‘But it’s still a good day.’

  Badlands laughed uproariously and clapped him on the shoulder, nearly sending him to the ground. ‘Now you’re getting into the spirit of it!’

  Kyle didn’t say that it was the Lost brother who appeared to have reclaimed his old spirit. He spat and croaked, ‘How many?’

  Grinning, Badlands raised a hand as if to hold him back. ‘Enough! Don’t you fear – more than enough. They’ve decided to grind us down.’

  The flickering light of flames now sent shadows whipping over them. Tossed torches came arcing out from behind the ranks. Some thumped to the ground in splashes of sparks and ash, but others struck the grassed roof of the Greathall to catch, sputtering and smoking.

  ‘Looks like they’ve changed tactics,’ Badlands observed.

  Kyle carefully sheathed the white blade. He studied the steep roof. ‘Shouldn’t we go up there?’

  ‘You’ll be poked full of arrows, lad.’

  More torches came flying overhead, together with skins of what must have been some sort of oil. The roof suddenly roared to life in orange flames.

  ‘Have to find Cal,’ Badlands said, and jogged off.

  ‘Hold the line!’ an Avowed shouted above the crackling of the flames. Kyle staggered to the earthworks and peered over. The Letherii soldiery had assembled a short distance off in double ranks, bows held before them, arrows nocked. The shifting light of the flames danced from their helmets. They were ready to repel any attempt at escape.

  The roof was now a deafening inferno. Its heat pummelled Kyle’s back. Drifting sparks stung his neck and billowing black smoke choked him. A tap on his shoulder revealed Badlands returned. He yelled into Kyle’s ear: ‘Time for that desperate break out somebody mentioned a while back.’ He motioned for Kyle to follow and led him to the rear of the Greathall.