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

  ‘We have a chance,’ Lady Orosenn offered. ‘Omtose Phellack hampers them. They must march as any other army. They must climb defences. Receive blows. Those that are broken will not arise again. We can defend. Their Bonecasters will attempt to raise Tellann, but I shall work to suppress it. Together, we may have a chance.’

  The age-spotted hand that Cartheron had been drawing so hard down his face now brushed the grey bristles of his chin. He turned his head to study Tyvar for a time. ‘And what of you, Mortal Sword? I don’t believe Togg has done you any favours here.’

  The swordsman regained his savage grin. ‘I disagree. We have been blessed with the greatest challenge we could hope for. No force has ever repelled the T’lan. The Blue Shields intend to be the first.’

  Cartheron gave a curt nod. ‘So be it. To tell the truth, I would like to have a word with these Imass.’

  Lady Orosenn bowed to Cartheron. ‘My thanks, commander. We all have our posts, then. I shall be at the entrance to the inner keep.’ Bowing again, she headed off, followed by her servant.

  Malle regarded Cartheron with a speculative glint in her dark eyes. ‘The right thing, Crust?’

  ‘Right enough,’ he answered, roughly.

  ‘And what of your cargo?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not right for this – unless you want to destroy our own walls.’

  She pursed her thin lips. ‘A shame. Very well…’ She inclined her head. ‘Commander. I shall be at the wall with my men.’

  Jute watched her walk away then turned to Cartheron. ‘Excuse me, captain … but just who is that woman anyway?’

  Cartheron was rubbing a hand over his bristled chin once more. ‘Who? Her? Ah – Malle.’ An expression came to his face that was similar to the admiring look the woman herself had given him. ‘The Empire has one academy where its imperial Claws are trained, Jute. For thirty years that gal ran it.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Well, I’m for the walls. Apparently I’m in command of the foreigner contingent here. You can stand with me if you like – as good a view as anywhere of the coming goddamned end of the world, I suppose.’ He headed off.

  Jute stood unmoving. He knew where his post should be – back at the Dawn with Ieleen. She’d be worried, he knew. Yet … to walk away from witnessing the T’lan Imass confronted? To describe such an opportunity as once in a lifetime would be a laughable under-statement. Once every ten thousand years, more like. He simply could not tear himself away. Besides, the Dawn was in the best of hands with her. And the crew was loyal.

  He hurried to catch up. Beyond the tall stone walls, the glow of torches still bobbed and swept about. Voices clamoured, and, above the bellowed orders and shouts of plain panic, he heard the crash and groan of equipment being moved and the thump of axes on timber.

  * * *

  Climbing a ramp of beaten earth, Jute found Cartheron with Lieutenant Jalaz at his side. He took the commander’s other side. They overlooked Mantle town, or at least its remains. The camp of the besiegers was in turmoil. Glancing far to the east, where the glow of coming dawn painted the sky a brightening purple, he glimpsed a bedraggled line of distant figures in retreat – those who wouldn’t stop even for the presumptive safety of the camp and what portion of the invader army remained. From what he’d heard of the wilds of the Bone Peninsula, he imagined such refugees wouldn’t long survive.

  Those elements that had retained their organization were now feverishly assembling a barricade to the rear. They obviously had completely reversed themselves to face the enemy they believed to be coming for them. Jute groaned his helpless frustration and disbelief, ‘But the T’lan don’t want them!’

  Cartheron sighed. ‘Malle’s been trying to tell them that.’ He lifted his bone-thin shoulders. ‘They’re terrified. They won’t listen.’

  ‘Better if they had all fled,’ Jute grumbled.

  ‘Really?’ Cartheron shot him a quick glance. ‘Bastards might actually get lucky, you know. Take down a few of the Imass.’

  The sentiment made Jute shudder. He’d forgotten. Their time together had fooled him into thinking the man at his side was a relatively harmless old codger – but he wasn’t. He was a retired commander of Malazan forces, once a High Fist. And to defend his command he was obviously prepared to sacrifice every one of these poor unfortunates arrayed on the field before him.

  Jute wrapped his cloak tighter about himself, turned to study the walls. A small complement, a watch, now stood the walls. He spotted the night-black shape of Malle at the wall, flanked by two figures, an old man and a young girl, who he believed had to be imperial cadre mages. Most of the defenders, locals, the Malazans, and Tyvar’s Genabackans, were lying down across the grounds. Jute shuddered again as the sight of all the prone figures crowding the broad yard made him think of a field of graves.

  Gods! The T’lan Imass. We won’t see the noon. Yet all I would have to do is drop my weapon and they would pass me by – would they not? Somehow, when the time came, Jute knew he would not yield. He would do his part. And defending walls is spear-work. Thankfully, there were plenty of racks at hand. He collected a spear and leaned upon it.

  Out among the demolished houses and huts of Mantle town, along the line of hastily raised barricades, one figure constantly marched back and forth, cajoling, yelling orders. From the voice, Jute knew this officer was a woman. She wore a long coat of mail and a helmet with a faceplate, raised at the moment.

  At one point Tyvar came past on an inspection and he paused at Cartheron’s side to motion to the officer. ‘See that one?’

  Cartheron nodded tiredly. ‘Yeah. I see.’

  ‘I’d know that style of armour and helmet anywhere,’ Tyvar continued, sounding almost excited. ‘That’s a Shieldmaiden out of northern Genabackis, I’m sure.’

  ‘They fought us in the north,’ Cartheron observed, a touch irritated – he’d been asleep standing up.

  Tyvar gave a serious nod. ‘Aye – as we would’ve if you’d reached the south.’ And he slapped Cartheron on the back and continued his circuit.

  Jute blinked heavily then, leaning on his spear, and the next thing he knew there were screams from below and he blinked anew, clutching his spear haft. It was brighter now, fully dawn, though it was hard to tell because of the dense low bank of clouds that hung like a smothering blanket crowded up against the slopes of the Salt range. Men and women among the defenders and civilians below were now pointing west. More among them broke and ran for the east, abandoning their posts and fleeing. The Shieldmaiden sent curses after them.

  Jute squinted into the gloom of the west. Figures were approaching just inland from the coast of the Gold Sea. A wide front of shapes. Not a file, or a column, but rather a broad skirmish-line of walkers. The image came to Jute of a net, a line of beaters, driving their prey before them. The image made him almost faint with dread. T’lan Imass. So terrifyingly ruthless and unrelenting. They won’t let anyone escape them.

  The Shieldmaiden now shouted encouragement to her troops, who readied their spears. She drew her own sword and climbed the barricade.

  ‘Good for you…’ Cartheron murmured beneath his breath.

  The T’lan came on, scarecrow thin, unhurried, yet somehow inexorable – like the tide, Jute thought. Their skirmish-line passed between the burned and scavenged husks of the few houses of Mantle town. They brushed aside the canvas of tents, kicked through smoking campfires. Closer now, Jute saw how their cloaks hung ragged and full of gaping tears. Some wore animal bones as armour in the shape of wide scapulae lashed across the chest, or skulls of enormous beasts upon their heads. They came with their slim stone blades gripped negligently in their fists. He put their number at over a hundred.

  They met the logs and overturned wagons of the barricade and those blades flashed to hack through the thigh-wide trunks as if they were kindling. The defenders thrust with their spears. They rocked backwards a few of the attackers, but these merely shook off the thrusts and returned to the task of chopping the barrier.


  Further panicked yells sounded where individual Imass succeeded in pushing their way through. Defenders closed, spears abandoned and swords drawn. Next to Jute, Cartheron ground out a muttered, ‘Fools…’ yet he sounded admiring all the same.

  Jute saw the commander of this desperate – yet needless! – defence charge in to join one fray. A great swipe from her heavy blade chopped down through an Imass at juncture of neck and shoulder. That one fell, evidently crippled. A great cheer arose from the defenders, and Jute noted that Tyvar’s Blue Shields joined in the huzzah.

  More Imass came as they pushed and hacked through the heaped wreckage. Defenders fell. However, to his relief, Jute saw now that the Imass were lashing out with their fists and the sides of their blades as they swung to bash the men and women down. Oddly enough, he almost felt grateful to these elders for their restraint – if that was what one might call it.

  The Shieldmaiden fell then, taken by a blow to her helmet that laid her flat. A shudder of pain seemed to run through the line of defenders, and it broke. Jute, who had never seen a land battle before this journey, sensed it even as it happened. It seemed as if all it took was one defender half stepping back, or flinching, and his fellows shied away as well. Instantly, it seemed, like a contagion, this backpedalling spread up and down the ragged line and men and women were outright fleeing, scrambling, all streaming towards the east.

  The T’lan halted their advance to watch them go. Their flat ravaged profiles turned to follow the men and women as they fled. Those same cadaver heads then swung up to regard the walls.

  Jute felt his mouth turn ash-dry while at the same time his hands were slick upon the spear haft. He wiped them on the thighs of his woollen trousers.

  At some silent order, the T’lan resumed their advance. They stepped on dropped shields and abandoned spears as they came.

  As they neared the stakes driven into the ground before the ditch beneath the walls, Cartheron leaned forward, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted down, ‘We of Mantle Keep greet you! With what clan do I speak?’

  The ranks halted to stand as silent and still as a file of statues. A weak wind brushed at the hanging tattered ends of hides and fur cloaks.

  Jute saw the local young king presumptive, Voti, followed by Malle, arrive next to Cartheron. The lad stood with his arms crossed, the haft of his spear hugged to his chest. Jute heard a steady murmuring among the local defenders gathered at the walls. Their accent was difficult for him, but eventually he made out the repeated litany of wonder: ‘… bone and dust…’

  He turned to the nearest of the locals, a woman, perhaps a mother standing the wall to defend her children within. ‘What does this mean,’ he asked, ‘“bone and dust”?’

  ‘An old legend among us,’ she replied, sounding oddly resigned. ‘An old story that our world will end with an invasion of the dead.’

  Jute could only shake his head in wonder. Ye gods! Was this prescience? Or merely chance? But, he thought, the war between Imass and Jaghut was incalculably ancient. Perhaps this legend was a memory of an earlier clash. One that might even have occurred upon another continent halfway round the world.

  Closing now, up the silent unmoving ranks, came two figures. Both were of course of Imass stock, yet they differed strikingly. One was lean while the other markedly squat. The lean one wore the mangy and raggedy hide of what appeared to have once been a white bear. The beast’s head rode his own, the upper fangs hanging down before his mummified face. Necklaces of yellowed bear claws rode his chest, and the clacking and clattering of these were the only sounds Jute could hear.

  The other Imass was among the most damaged of those present. She – Jute intuited somehow that it was female – appeared to have been thrust through multiple times. She bore a primitive face with a broad shelf of a brow and wide jaws. Her canines jutted quite prominently and they glinted copper in the early morning light. Shells laced about her ragged leathers swung and clattered.

  The Imass in the bear hide stepped forward. His voice, though as wispy as brushing leaves, somehow reached Jute: ‘Greetings. I am Ut’el Anag, Bonecaster to the Kerluhm T’lan Imass. Who addresses us?’

  ‘I am Cartheron Crust of the Malazans. We greet you as allies and friends.’

  Ut’el shifted his skull-like face to his companion Imass. ‘I understand that alliance no longer holds. You and all those not native to these lands are trespassers here. Stand aside and you will not be harmed. Our quarrel is not with you.’

  ‘This is the will of Silverfox?’ Cartheron called, much louder.

  The Bonecaster paused only very slightly. ‘It is our way.’

  ‘But not hers, I gather. She is coming, is she not? Perhaps we would prefer to wait to hear her counsel on this matter.’

  The bear head dipped as the Kerluhm Bonecaster nodded. ‘You may wait. Meanwhile, Omtose Phellack is rotting. I sense a powerful elder Jaghut within, but even she, being flesh and blood, will tire. Soon we shall be free to move as we wish.’

  Jute turned to mutter to Cartheron, ‘He is right in that. What shall we do?’

  The old commander answered beneath his breath, ‘Don’t worry yourself. They may be ancient, but they’re still awful at cards. They can’t bluff worth a damn.’

  Smiling broadly, the ex-High Fist answered with a welcoming sweep of his arm. ‘Then sit yourself down and let me tell you all about my childhood on Nap. Do you know Nap? It’s an island south of Quon Tali. ’Course in your time it was probably a mountain top. In any case, I was born on Fanderay’s High Holy day – not that that’s done me any good – though my mam claims it shaped my character just as my brother Urko was born in a quarry—’

  Ut’el raised a withered hand for silence. ‘So be it. You should not invite our attack. Do not think we will spare you as we did these other outsiders.’

  ‘I did not imagine so.’ Cartheron turned to the new king and Malle. ‘Find your place at the wall, ah, sire.’

  The lad nodded and sauntered off, determined to show how unimpressed he was. ‘They were going to attack anyway,’ Malle said.

  Cartheron waved her onward. ‘I figured as much.’

  Jute took a renewed grip on his spear haft, found he had to wipe his hands once again.

  The attack came as before, without warning or shouted orders. As one, the Imass simply advanced, spread along the arc of the wall. They clambered down the slope of the moat, pushed through the mud, then started climbing the wall using handholds in the rough stone slabs.

  The defenders, local northerners, Malazans, and Blue Shields, thrust with spears to dislodge or stave off the wave. The Imass ignored these stabs as they climbed. Many defenders soon understood that thrusting weapons were ineffective against this ancient army, and so the spears, billhooks and pikes were thrown down and swords and axes readied.

  Jute abandoned his own spear standing from the shoulder of an Imass. The creature calmly took hold of the haft, yanked it free, and returned to its slow deliberate ascent. Jute drew the weapon at his side and was appalled to remember as he saw it that it was a shortsword. He cursed Mael and himself. How could he have not foreseen … He madly searched about for a larger weapon.

  Long-hafted axes lay gathered at the inside base of the wall. Jute scrambled down the ramp to collect one. He lifted one and was about to return to the wall when he heard a strange sound coming from the rear – from the cliff side. It was the methodical thump of wood being chopped.

  He could hear this because the battle was eerily silent. The T’lan, of course, made no noise at all. The defenders merely grunted, swore and exhaled noisily in their efforts, while wood and iron clattered from stone.

  He wondered what could possibly … Then he knew and his hair stirred to stand on end. He ran for the cliff top. A crowd of the locals had gathered here, peering down and pointing. Jute pushed through to the fore. Down below, four Imass had climbed out along the cliff to reach the stairway and were in the process of demolishing it. Even as he watched, sectio
ns of the stairs tore free of the rocks to tumble in awful slowness.

  The Dawn was below! He looked to the vessels, and realized the crews had seen this coming and had already slipped moorings and were in the process of pulling away: the Dawn, the Ragstopper, and the Genabackan pirate’s. Even the Resolute, though Jute had no idea who might be crewing it.

  The wreckage of timber crashed and burst upon the rocks. Entire lengths of the stairs had been cut from the cliff face. Jute watched the vessels raising sails and he silently bid Ieleen farewell. He knew now he would die here. His need to be part of negotiations, to witness events – to poke his nose in where it didn’t belong, as Ieleen had it – would finally finish him. As she had so long predicted.

  Everyone at the cliff top now saw the four T’lan Imass climbing the rocks headed straight for them.

  As the battle raged on behind them, these locals, most of them non-combatant women and old men, began heaving rocks down upon the Imass. They took axes to the uppermost section of the stairs, Jute included, and managed to send it tumbling down as well. One of the Imass fell a short distance, but caught himself, possibly breaking the bones of his arm.

  The lead three reached the top where soil and sod curled over the lip. As they dragged themselves over, people crowded in to hack at them. It was frantic and panicked – ugly to any soldier, no doubt, as utter disorder reigned. People got in each other’s way, even injured one another with their wild swings. Jute caught himself sobbing and cursing as he tried to get a blow in.

  One Imass lost an arm and slipped back over the lip, presumably to fall. The two others righted themselves beneath a flurry of blows and drew their stone blades. A lucky swing took one’s hand off where it gripped the blade and this Imass lashed out to clutch its adversary’s neck. Trachea and vertebrae popped and crunched audibly, then it tossed the limp corpse over the edge behind it. Spears thudded into its torso to stand like decorations. It knelt to retrieve its blade odd-handed. The other Imass slashed down a woman. Two men threw themselves on to it, wrapped their arms around it, and the three tottered backwards to slip off the edge and disappear in complete deathly silence.