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

  Bars’ face revealed his shocked disbelief. ‘You can’t send us back!’

  K’azz’s voice softened. ‘Not back, Bars. Off the ice. It is dangerous for you.’

  ‘But not for you, or Shimmer, or Blues?’

  ‘We … seem able to fight its effects better. Now, pick her up and go.’ He gestured Gwynn to him, ‘Make sure they all make it off.’

  Gwynn, his long staff in his hands, nodded grimly. ‘Yes, K’azz. We will await you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He turned to go but Blues and Shimmer planted themselves directly in his path. ‘And what of us?’ Blues said.

  Their commander offered a lift of his bird-like bony shoulders beneath his torn leather jerkin. ‘You wished to find your answers … they await above.’

  ‘And Cal-Brinn?’ Shimmer demanded. ‘Aren’t we here for him as well?’

  K’azz nodded. ‘He is near. The same … difficulty … is affecting him. If we do not find him above, then we shall search for him.’

  Shimmer stood aside. ‘Very well. But we had better find him.’

  K’azz closed his eyes in tired agreement. ‘We will, Shimmer. I swear.’

  The man appeared exhausted, his eyes sunken, his cheeks hollow. And clearly the strange spell of general lassitude pulled upon him as well, but she thought there was something more weighing him down, he was sad. So very regretful. What was it that affected him so? Whatever the answers were, they seemed to be breaking his heart.

  At that moment she was almost ready to agree that they ought simply to find Cal-Brinn and go. If whatever lay above was so distressing to K’azz, perhaps it was best left alone. Yet to have come so far … and they were so near … She shook her head. Whatever it was, perhaps it would weigh less heavily upon him if they all shared it. It seemed almost near to breaking him even as she watched.

  Yes, that was it. He need not bear this all by himself. She turned to the rest of the Guard gathering to retreat. Bars, she saw, was steadily returning her gaze. It was a good few moments before a voice spoke in her thoughts: what are you waiting for? You should go to him. She did so, and a strange relief flickered across his face. She stood close, peering up at him, and raised an arm to slip it behind his neck.

  ‘You have been distant of late,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘We must get to the bottom of that.’

  ‘Yes, we will. When I return.’

  ‘Very well. When you return.’ He bent to kiss her and jerked away, shock on his face, ‘You are so cold!’

  ‘Is that a complaint?’

  ‘I mean it. Here, take this,’ and he moved to slip off his woollen cloak.

  She closed her hand on his. ‘Keep it. I do not feel the cold.’ He frowned, troubled. ‘Do not worry. I will return.’

  Something of his old manner slipped through as he growled, ‘See that you do.’

  She turned to where K’azz and Blues waited, then gestured, inviting them, Baran, Erta and Siguna onward. She turned for one last wave farewell, wondering again: what is wrong with me?

  * * *

  Marshal Teal stood at a brazier in his command tent high in the upper vales of the southern slopes of the Salt range. He warmed his hands over the charcoal and considered his next course of action. Scouting parties would have to be sent, of course, to determine whether the last renegades had chosen to hang about. His orders from Luthal had been explicit; his future position depended upon his thoroughness.

  Still, he was confident. This was, after all, a mere mopping up. He was eager to return to clean out Mantle. Once their grip was secure upon this north coast of the Sea of Gold, they could consider their next move. Consolidation of the south coast, most likely. Then onward to the Bone Peninsula.

  All funded by their war-chest of gold dust.

  Thunder rumbled beyond the hide tent walls. A storm was on its way. Good. Perhaps the renegades would die of exposure and save them any further expenditure. Still, he would like to get his hands on that white blade. It would bring a fortune in Lether, or Darujhistan. He could name his price.

  The thunder intensified into a constant deep ongoing roar that Teal thought he could feel through his feet. Then the ground moved. The brazier would have fallen had he not steadied it and singed his fingers. Panicked shouts sounded without. He threw open the tent flap, demanded of a guard, ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Earthquake, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I know that!’ He waved to indicate the men rushing about bearing torches. ‘What is everyone upset about?’

  The guard swallowed hard. ‘Well, sir. Most of these lads have never experienced one. They say … well, talk is, the northern gods are angry at us.’

  ‘What a load of bullshit. You get out there and you calm them down!’

  The guard saluted crisply. ‘Yes sir!’ He ran off, waving for others to accompany him.

  Teal drew in a deep breath of the cold clean air. Gods give him patience! What could he possibly be expected to accomplish with these pathetic recruits! Give him drilled and trained regulars over these amateur foreigners any day.

  He crossed his arms, hugged himself for warmth against the fiercely cold wind and peered into the low clouds to the north. It looked as if something was moving there behind the swirling banners of mist. He took a few hesitant steps, squinting. It was almost as if the entire slope above them was slowly shifting. Had the earthquake triggered a rockslide?

  The ground beneath his feet began to vibrate. Not in the rolling of any earthquake he’d ever experienced, but as a constant low drumming vibration. A distant avalanche, perhaps?

  The swirling clouds parted then, as if thrust aside by some broad front of wind. Through the dimness of the overcast night he saw that the slope above was much steeper and closer than he remembered. And it was moving – roiling and churning as it came. Even as he watched, entire swathes of tall spruce and fir fell before its advance, only to be sucked beneath the leading edge of tumbling rock and soil.

  True panicked yells sounded now about the camp, all nearly drowned by the roar of the coming cataclysm. Teal stood transfixed. In his experience this was unanswerable. How could anyone respond to such an onslaught? There was simply nothing to be done.

  Lieutenants came, shouting to be heard, but he merely waved to them to flee. ‘Save yourselves,’ he mouthed. And they fled. He chose not to. There was something inexorable, almost magisterial, in what he was witnessing. Running might gain one a few more minutes of life, but why fall in an undignified mad scramble?

  He preferred to meet what was coming. And he did – just before the end.

  The screen of conifers above the camp was the last layer of trees still standing before the mountain of churned-up soil and rock tumbling its way down upon him. The ground now juddered as if in agony; he could barely keep his feet. The avalanche roar was so loud it deafened him.

  And he glimpsed, above the mounded-up tons of loose soil and talus, something glowing with an inner cobalt-blue light. A broad and low wall descending out of the heights, pulverizing rock, and growling an immensely deep basso rumble that was shaking the ground, and his breath left him in awe.

  How beautiful, and how terrible …

  * * *

  ‘You must all flee.’

  They were in conference within the stone tower at Mantle. Lady Orosenn stood with the aid of Jute’s shoulder – he winced whenever her full weight threatened to bow him – and he with one arm bandaged and bound across his chest. They stood together with the new king, Voti, and Malle at his side. Cartheron was there, gritting his bristled jowls, and Tyvar, dabbing a cloth to the cut above his temple that would not stop bleeding.

  The young king continued to shake his head. ‘This is our home. We will not leave.’

  Lady Orosenn shifted her entreating gaze to Malle, whose black skirting was now slashed and spattered with dried blood. Having seen her fighting upon the wall Jute felt even more terrified of the woman: she threw slim knife blades, then hatchets that had snapped
back the heads of more than one Imass. Now, though, she merely pursed her thin colourless lips as if to say: there is nothing I can do …

  Orosenn shifted one awkward step backwards, signalling that she would go. ‘But reconsider while there is still time.’ Jute helped her turn round. Cartheron and Tyvar followed them out. ‘Stubborn fools,’ she complained as they went.

  ‘We cannot force them to go,’ Tyvar observed as he refolded the bloodied cloth.

  The Jaghut sorceress, for that was what everyone now knew her to be, studied the Blue Shield commander for a time. ‘No. But there is something you can do. The task that perhaps you were truly sent here for.’ She headed off, limping, for the eastern curtain wall. ‘Come with me.’

  Jute helped her up the ramp to the catwalk. She gestured over the wall to the ragtag encampment the invaders had set up along the shore east of the fortress. Smoke from countless camp fires hung over it before gusting southward over the sea, driven by the fierce frigid winds blowing down from the heights. Jute put their numbers at close to six thousand.

  However, he was far more interested in the five vessels anchored a safe distance off the coast. Though it was foggy, he would recognize the Dawn anywhere. With it lay the Ragstopper, the Resolute, the Supplicant, and that Genabackan pirate’s galley.

  Seeing the direction of his gaze, Tyvar said, ‘They are wise to stay off shore.’

  Jute nodded. ‘Aye. They’d be swamped immediately.’

  ‘You see these people?’ Orosenn asked Tyvar, who stroked his beard, a touch mystified. ‘In less than two days they will all be dead if they do not move south.’

  The mercenary commander narrowed his gaze. ‘You are certain?’

  The sorceress let out a hard breath. ‘I know what is coming.’

  ‘What, then, would you have us do?’

  ‘Tyvar Gendarian, you said Togg gave you one last geas – to save innocent lives. Well, there lie thousands. I believe that is truly what our god had in mind. Not battle. Saving lives! You are the Blue Shields, are you not? Escort them south! Organize the evacuation of the women and children on to the vessels, then guide the rest down the Bone Peninsula. Guard them. Ward them. See them safe. There is a true challenge!’

  The commander studied the rambling camp and his brows tightened. ‘We are fewer than one hundred now,’ he murmured.

  ‘Work with that woman who was organizing their defence – she lives still.’ Her eyes rose to the heights, where some sort of lightning storm flickered and glowed behind the dense cloud cover. Jute could hear the rumblings of the thunder even from this distance. She returned her gaze to Tyvar, fierce. ‘This is my request of you, Tyvar. See them safe. I’m sure Togg would approve.’

  He had been stroking his beard. His eyes now glittered with renewed passion. He bowed his head in assent. ‘Saving innocents,’ he answered. ‘Yes. Togg would approve. Thank you for reminding me of my purpose, my lady. We will go at once.’ He jogged down the ramp, shouting for his lieutenants.

  ‘And what of us?’ Jute asked. ‘Will we be safe here?’

  She turned a warm gaze upon him. ‘You will return to Ieleen on board the Dawn and sail south, Jute of Delanss. You have lingered here too long.’

  ‘But will you be safe?’

  ‘Never mind about us. See the evacuees safe. Enjoy your life. Give your love to Ieleen. She is very worried for you.’

  ‘But what of you?’

  ‘Go. Now. Leave me here at the wall. I wish to … study the storm for a time.’

  He was unwilling to abandon her, or Cartheron for that matter. She had arguably saved his life twice now. Thinking of the Malazan gave him an idea. He bowed his leave and went to find the old commander.

  It took him a long time to track the man down. Eventually he was pointed to the cliff edge and there found the fellow peering down at the sea. He had the look of a man who’d forgotten something he suspected was important. He nodded a distracted greeting to Jute. ‘Damned thorough, those Imass,’ he muttered. ‘Took out our access to the water. Now I know what it’s like to be on the other end of their stone swords.’

  ‘Sir,’ Jute began, attempting to grab his attention, ‘you have to talk sense into Malle. Something tells me she wouldn’t ignore a direct command from you.’

  The fellow lifted his chin in assent. ‘Once, aye. But there’s a new regime now, and I’m not welcome. In fact, I’m officially drowned.’

  ‘The sorceress has asked Tyvar to escort all the newcomers south. I believe he’ll do it.’

  ‘Sounds like an impossible task. I’m sure he’ll relish it.’

  ‘We can get the women and children into the vessels.’

  Cartheron nodded approvingly. ‘And you go with them, Jute. But not the Ragstopper.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s full of water. Won’t sail no more. And I have to admit I’m kinda curious ’bout what’s coming. I have my suspicions.’

  It took some time for Jute to accept what he was hearing. ‘So … you’re saying you’re going to stay?’

  ‘Aye. I believe it could be quite a sight.’

  ‘And the crew?’

  He shrugged. ‘They can choose, o’ course.’

  Jute let out a long breath. He didn’t know what to say. He discovered himself plucking at the edge of his shirt. ‘Well, then,’ he sighed. ‘I guess I’d best go and help.’

  Cartheron gave him the old salute of a hand to the chest, then waved him away. A few paces off, Jute turned back and called, ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The old emperor.’

  Cartheron pulled a hand down his greying jowls, nodded his understanding of Jute’s interest. ‘I could never make up my mind if he was the biggest fool I’d ever met, or the most cunning bastard.’

  The answer wasn’t what Jute had expected, but the commander, once a High Fist, turned away to stare out over the waters of the Sea of Gold, and so he went to find Tyvar.

  * * *

  The vessels, it turned out, were wisely allowing none to approach. Early in the morning, Jute went out alone in the battered old skiff that the invaders’ commander, Lyan, had sent out through the night to beg for berths. He arranged for the young and the wounded to be taken out to the Resolute and the Silver Dawn. Lady Orosenn also offered up the Supplicant. Jute was wary, but when he climbed a rope ladder, one-handed, and inspected the vessel, he found it completely empty of any crew. He did not know where the silent figures he’d glimpsed had gone, now that the sorceress had no more use for them. He had his ideas, of course, but these he kept to himself.

  The Genabackan pirate, Enguf, offered berths to the highest bidders, and in this manner did well out of the venture after all. He was the first to sail off, if rather sluggishly, with a perilously slim freeboard, as he’d taken on far too many passengers. Greed, Jute reflected, seemed immune to all setbacks.

  Next went the Resolute. As passenger on board this vessel went a crippled youth who seemed to be family to the Genabackan Shieldmaiden officer. The woman, however, remained with the camp. She seemed satisfied with the protection that the Blue Shields offered, sending five of their number with the vessel, together with their pledge to reunite her and the boy in Elingarth.

  The Supplicant followed slowly, its crew of veteran sailors from among the invaders doing their best with the unfamiliar lines of the strange vessel.

  This left the Ragstopper and the Silver Dawn. Jute clapped his hands on young Reuth’s shoulders and looked him up and down. The lad appeared to be prospering; gone were the bruises of his escape – at least those apparent in the flesh. He was eating well and even occasionally smiled. Jute had noticed that he asked almost every new passenger for news of a ‘Whiteblade’. An ex-Malazan swordsman.

  He waved the lad off and turned to Ieleen, who sat in her usual place next to the tiller arm, hands on her short walking stick, her head tilted to the wind. It seemed to him that she’d been watching him out of the edge of her snow-white orbs. He rubbed
a hand over his unshaven cheeks and cleared his throat.

  ‘You’re staying, then,’ she said, and he jumped, startled.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I know that throat-clearing.’

  He continued to brush his fingers over a cheek. ‘I have to see this through to the end, love.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He gazed about the deck, now crowded with evacuees. ‘Curiosity, I guess. I have to see how it ends.’

  She banged the stick to the deck. ‘It could end in your death!’

  ‘Don’t let’s fight, dear. Not during my leave-taking.’

  ‘I’m supposed to like it?’

  ‘Don’t worry. The Ragstopper remains. We can evacuate in that, if we must.’

  She shook her head in a knowing negative. ‘That hulk sounds as full of water as a bathtub.’

  ‘Well … it’s still afloat. In any case, we can always run for it.’

  She continued shaking her head. Her grey curls blew about in the wind. ‘I’ve always feared your curiosity will be the death of you.’

  ‘I’ll be careful, dearest.’

  Her silver orbs narrowed, promising her wrath. ‘You’d better be.’

  ‘Of course I will. I’ll await your return. If not here, then further south down the coast. Yes?’

  She tapped the stick to the deck thoughtfully. ‘I do not want you to go. But if you must…’ She shook her head. Sadly, this time.

  ‘Thank you, my chick.’ He pecked her on the cheek.

  She urged him off with the stick. ‘Go on, then.’

  He saluted the ship’s weapons master, Letita, who appeared miserable herself, her eyes red and her cheeks wet. He recalled that Lieutenant Jalaz was remaining with Cartheron. Then he climbed down one of the rope ladders to a waiting skiff.

  The shore was now empty. Where a temporary encampment of thousands had arisen, only smoking fire pits and the trash of torn canvas, abandoned boots, broken tools and mining equipment remained. The unruly mob of civilians had been urged, cajoled, and plain browbeaten by Tyvar and his remaining Blue Shields, plus the Shieldmaiden and her Genabackan veterans, into marching south down the coast.