Blood and Bone

by Ian C. Esslemont

  And how did he get to the compound before us?

  And – oh, my dear – what happened to my two men down in the tunnels?

  He mutely shook his head, half turning away. ‘I … I cannot say for certain. Fear, I suppose. Fear for our chances.’

  She grasped hold of his arm. Her hands were hot, even through his armour. ‘I understand. Nothing is certain. But if we stand together I know of nothing that can oppose us.’

  Yes. If we stand together.

  He offered her a smile and though he knew it to be a poor effort, she raised herself to press her lips to his. She whispered huskily. ‘Tonight, my prince. While the Adwami celebrate their victory, look for your humble serving girl – come to offer whatever your heart may desire.’

  And though he hated himself for it he felt his own hunger rising and he answered the kiss. Am I the fool? I may be. Yet even this does not stop me. He realized that nothing would stop him. The possession of her body meant that much to him. Ancestors forgive me. I risk everything for the perfume that is her sweat. The honey that is her wetness. The music that is her pleasure.

  I am damned.

  CHAPTER VII

  At nightfall we arrived close to an inhabited place. We heard the dull blows of axes resounding from the depths of the jungle. It was a new village under construction. Suddenly, piercing cries rang in our ears and in front of me, barely a few rods away, a monstrous half-man, half-animal appeared leaping on all fours. It was dragging a child off. Crying out, my porters and I gave chase, shouting, in pursuit of the ferocious beast. A few moments later we found the child, which the monster had dropped in its flight. Taking it into my arms, I was astounded to see that it bore not one scratch from its ordeal.

  Francal Garner

  Travels in Jacuruku,

  Jacal River Exploration Report, Vol. 1

  IT ANNOYED MURK no end that Sour kept walking directly ahead of him. The man had the infuriating habit of pushing his way through the jungle fronds only to let them whip back to slap him in the face. For the twentieth time that day he had to restrain himself from throttling the squat bow-legged mage. Now he almost ran into him as Sour stopped abruptly, bringing the entire following column to an unexpected halt.

  Sour thrust his hands in their tattered leather gauntlets up at Murk who couldn’t help flinching away – mostly from the ripe pong that surrounded his grimed and sweaty companion. He was aware that he himself certainly didn’t smell of cloves after the days of slogging through the dense jungle and sleeping in the warm rain, but some people just had a nasty stink to them. Maybe it was the man’s diet. They were pretty much out of food and Murk had no idea what his partner was eating these days.

  ‘Lookit this,’ Sour announced, and, taking off a gauntlet, he pinched at his left thumb, pulling, and the entire outer layer of white skin slid off the digit. Like a snake shedding. The Shadow mage waved the empty sac of flesh. ‘It’s like a pouch, or somethin’.’

  Murk slapped the man’s hands aside. ‘Did you have to show me that? That’s disgusting. Why in the Abyss would I want to see that?’

  Offended, Sour blinked his bulging mismatched eyes and turned away. ‘Think that’s disgusting … you should see my feet.’

  Murk didn’t want to see the man’s feet. In fact, he didn’t want to see his own feet. Just the thought of what might be going on in his rotting leather boots made him shiver in revulsion. Each step was a squishy slide of wetness. He could imagine the soft flesh all mushed together …

  With a shudder, he straight-armed Sour onward.

  The plan was to find a settlement. Some sort of civilization. Acquire guides to a capital, or whatever would pass for a major trading settlement, and arrange passage out.

  That was the plan. Problem was, when their hired vessel had deserted them it took away all their stores and spare equipment. They’d been left with only the few supplies they’d brought ashore and now those were gone. They marched with just the clothes, weapons, and armour on their back. And now even this was rotting away. All the leather armour and fittings stretched and weakened in the constant warmth and damp until Murk could tear it with his bare hands. And all the metal, be it iron, bronze or copper – studs, clasps and buckles, even the swords – was rusting and corroding. Some of the mercenaries had thrown it all off entirely and now marched only in the long under-padding from their armour, such as plain quilted gambesons that hung to their knees.

  Murk had almost immediately thrown away his helmet. He marched now in a laced leather jerkin over a silk undershirt. His jerkin fared better than most as his sweat kept it well oiled, and his pantaloons were really no more than cloth wrappings that ran from his calves to his thighs. He’d considered carrying his knife inside his shirt where the body oils would help protect the iron blade, but he’d seen too many die in agony from cuts poisoned by rust – the locked jaw, the convulsions, the muscles constricting savagely enough to snap bones. One of the most ghastly ways to go. And so he wrapped the knife in rags and carried it tucked into his belt.

  Sour, on the other hand, looked to have made no concessions whatsoever to the deathly heat and damp. He still wore his stained leather cap, which had now grown a layer of mould. His leather hauberk, with all its jangling rusted iron clasps and studs, hung from him like a rotting ill-fitting sack. His leather riding trousers flapped in tatters as he walked. The crossbow on his back was so corroded it surely must be seized. All in all, the fellow looked like an escapee from a lich yard.

  But we’re none of us much better off, Murk had to admit. The real worry – aside from disease and infection – was food. They’d lost two soldiers already to some kind of bloody stomach and intestine illness. Both had been supplementing their meagre rations with gods knew what things they’d found growing in the jungle. Meanwhile, he was suffering from gut-twisting cramps together with what the veterans so colourfully named ‘the trots’. Diarrhoea, the runs, Seven Cities’ Revenge, the flux, trooper’s stomach, the two-step. Whatever you wanted to call it, it wasn’t pretty. Especially with all that blood in it.

  Behind them in the column, Dee and Ostler still carried the tiny jewellery box on its stretcher. An honour-guard, of sorts, surrounded the two and their light cargo: at least five mercenaries at all times. He wondered what their guest, Celeste, thought of that. Would she be flattered … or threatened? There was no knowing how her mind worked. He’d seen nothing of her of late. Off exploring perhaps. Fine with him. Dealing with her was like trying to juggle Moranth munitions: no knowing when she might go off in your face.

  A halt was called towards noon. Or at least what Murk thought was near noon. The sun remained hidden behind layer after layer of overlapping leaves and canopy. The heat was at its most crushing while a choking humidity from the night’s rain misted about them, coiling into the high canopy and the sky above. Presumably only to rain down upon them once more in the cool of the eve.

  Murk slumped down on to a ridged snaking root of one of the gigantic trees that reared taller than any tower, temple or palace that he’d ever seen. Fat vines hung from its high branches and they stirred feebly, rubbing in the almost non-existent breeze. A veritable chorus of noise surrounded their party. Birds unfamiliar to him let loose their sharp piercing calls, insects chirruped and whirred incessantly, especially at night, nearly driving him crazy. Now that he wasn’t moving the bugs clouded about him. They crawled like a contagion over his face, scalp and arms while they stung and bit his skin and sucked his blood. He swiped at them lazily, already tired of having to brush them away every minute of the day and night. He’d heard of animals and people being driven mad by their constant nipping harassment and he could believe it now.

  He’d seen little of all the wildlife that must crowd this jungle; the noise the column made crashing through the underbrush must send them all fleeing. Even so, Yusen had scouts out hunting. Murk prayed to Togg and Fanderay that one of them would get lucky.

  Not all the animals had run off, though. He wiped the sweat fr
om his eyes and squinted up at the surrounding canopy. After a short search he spotted a few of the troop of long-tailed monkeys who wouldn’t leave them alone. Trailed their line of march they did, hooting, grimacing and lip smacking. They were gawking just as openly as any peasant farmers at a passing cavalcade of foreigners. It seemed the Oponn-damned carnival had arrived. He bared his own teeth back at them; things must be slow in the jungle if they were the best show in town.

  Without thinking about it he automatically reached to his side for his skin of water only to find nothing there. Empty and gone these last three days now. He figured they’d be dried corpses by now if it weren’t for everyone’s licking raindrops from the leaves. Instead of the missing waterskin, he searched for and found the leather pouch containing the last of his dried rations. Reaching inside, his fingers found not hard strips but a soft yielding mush. He snatched out his hand to find a smear of rotting meat dotted by writhing maggots. His shoulders slumped even further and he gritted his teeth against his revulsion. He tossed aside the pouch then wiped his hand on the rough surface of the root.

  Blinking heavily he peered around at the rest of the troop. Men and women sat slumped at the bases of trees, hoarding their energy, motionless but for batting at the dancing insects. Everyone seemed to feel the drain of the heat. Everyone, that was, except …

  Sour thumped down next to him on the root. ‘What’cha doing, pard?’

  ‘Melting.’

  ‘Ha!’ Leaning aside, Sour blocked one nostril and blew a great stream of mucus on to the dead leaves. ‘ ’T’aint that bad.’

  ‘Not that bad? Where were you born? The fiery floor of that after-world some Seven Cities cults go on about?’

  ‘Naw.’ He squinted about with his mismatched goggling eyes, then admitted, his voice low, ‘The Horn. I grew up on the Horn.’

  ‘The desert horn? South of Dal Hon?’

  Sour waved his hands, his rotted leather gauntlets flapping. ‘Keep it quiet! Not something to brag about.’

  Murk was intrigued. His partner had never hinted at such. In fact, he’d always gone to great pains to emphasize his city upbringing. ‘But there’s nothing there …’

  ‘Not true. Was a trading port. Ships always laid over. Came from everywhere, they did. I ain’t no hick!’

  ‘All right, all right. So that’s why you can take the heat …’

  Looking away Sour remarked, ‘Ain’t the heat – it’s the humidity.’

  Once more Murk wanted to throttle his partner. What stayed his hands was what Sour had already noted: the approach of the Seven Cities officer, Burastan, or whatever her name really was. The long-legged, broad-shouldered woman was still an easy place to rest the eyes, even amid all this stink and decay. She wore wide cotton pantaloons tucked into tall leather moccasins, well oiled. A loose white robe over a thin silk chemise and sash completed her garb. She had arranged her long black hair in coils atop her head, away from her neck. Seven Cities, Murk thought resentfully. No wonder she was up and about in the heat. Still, sweat glistened on her lovely upper lip even as that mouth twisted its contempt as it always did whenever she caught sight of them.

  ‘Cap’n wants you. Forward.’

  Murk took a moment to gather his energy to rise. At his side, Sour saluted his flapping gauntlet. ‘Yes, ma’am, Banshur.’

  ‘That’s Burastan to you, monkeyface.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She led the way. Sour whispered aside to Murk, ‘What did she mean, monkeyface?’

  Murk waved to the surrounding walls of foliage. ‘She was noting a likeness to your brothers and sisters.’

  The man’s wizened whiskered face scrunched up in puzzlement. ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  The captain, Yusen, awaited them amid a great thicket of hanging serrated-edged fronds, each the size of a shield. With him was the wiry taciturn scout, Sweetly. A twig, as always, rode at the edge of the scout’s mouth. The twig seemed to be the man’s sole method of communication in an otherwise emotionless cipher of a face. An upward position indicated an approachable mood. During such times Murk dared venture a joke or two. A downward position indicated a nasty mood; at such times no one spoke to him. Currently the twig registered a straight outward position; neutral.

  The chattering and whistling of bird calls was a deafening clamour here. Murk imagined a large flock must roost nearby. ‘What is it?’ he asked while Sour saluted.

  The captain ignored the salute. He gestured ahead. ‘This way.’

  Sweetly pushed aside the wide leaves, causing a torrent of droplets to fall from their frills of dagger-like edges. Sour cursed the man and lunged to cup his hands beneath the drops. Rather than responding to Sour the scout shifted his blank gaze to Yusen.

  ‘Water’s not our worry now,’ the captain said, and he gestured Sweetly onward. The scout advanced very carefully. He edged aside another handful of the thick underbrush and as he did so a great blast of noise erupted from all around of countless birds launching from the canopy. Bright glaring sunlight struck Murk who winced and turned aside, shading his gaze. Sour cursed the scout again.

  Blinking, Murk saw that they stood at the crowded edge of a river. A near impenetrable wall of bright green verdancy lined both shores. The water was a slow-moving rust-red course that carried clumps of fallen branches and leaves along with it. Above, the sky was a clear bright blue except where a wall of dark clouds lurked in the east – the night’s rain. The wave of disturbed birdlife washed onward along the shore, brilliant shapes darting and swooping in gleaming emerald and sapphire. Like an explosion in a jewellery bourse, it seemed to Murk.

  Yusen crouched at the descent to the muddy edge. ‘Should we swim it?’ he asked Murk.

  Murk turned to Sour. ‘Want to take a peek?’

  ‘She won’t like it,’ he warned while adjusting his mouldering cap.

  ‘Who won’t?’ Yusen asked sharply.

  ‘Ardata,’ Murk half-mouthed.

  ‘Ah. I thought perhaps he meant …’

  Murk shook his head. ‘No, not her. I don’t think she cares what we do.’

  The captain’s thoughtful expression said that he didn’t know whether to be reassured by that. Murk nodded the go-ahead to Sour, who took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘But there’s gonna be trouble …’ He edged down the slope.

  Murk, the captain and Sweetly watched while the crab-legged mage sniffed about the shore. He poked at the mud and picked up bits and pieces of flotsam that he examined so close to his goggle eyes that Murk could see them cross. Satisfied at last, he sat with his back to them and tossed the collected litter on to a piece of leather spread on the mud. He peered down at the mess for some time.

  The blanket of heat and humidity caused Murk’s eyelids to droop and his shoulders to sag. His attention wandered to find Sweetly staring off upriver. The scout’s fixed interest stirred his unease. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

  The scout’s flat gaze flicked to him and the twig clamped tightly between his slit lips fell almost straight down.

  Shit. He nodded, then shut his eyes against the painful, unfamiliar glare of open sky. Raising his Warren was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was his responsibility. If he and Sour expected the troops to fight in their defence then they, in turn, were expected to utilize their talents to defend the column. That was the Malazan way: always an even exchange. And frankly, he wouldn’t be able to face them if they saw he was coasting on their backs. He didn’t know if Sour felt the same way about it all. He suspected not; the man was a far worse match to the rules and strictures of military life. And anyway, the troopers treated him more like a stray dog – one that had been kicked in the head once too often.

  When he opened his eyes once more he found that he was still within the murky tangle of the Shadow woods. What that demon had named the forest of the Azathanai. How absurd it was that the one feature of all Shadow he dared not enter should be the place jammed right over where he was stuck.
He decided to minimize his exposure by using the Warren merely to shift from place to place.

  He caught Yusen’s attention, murmured, ‘Be right back,’ and stepped into the nearest shadow. From here he shifted to another, then another, and in this manner he moved southward. He scanned the jungle from the cover of a number of different shadows and once he was reasonably sure no one was about, he stepped out. He saw no sign of what might’ve interested the scout. It may just have been the nervous birds. One more trick. He felt through the shadow-stuff, the ephemeral Emurlahn ether, the shades of Rashan. He was searching for something specific among the flickering shapes and eventually he found it cast against the broad trunk of a tree: the silhouette of a nearly naked man, crouched, armed with spear and bow.

  He returned to Yusen.

  Down on the shore, Sour slipped and slid through the sticky mud flats. He poked at the clutter that accumulated along any river edge, the silvery tree branches, the layers of rotting leaves, and the thick cake-like pats of clay. Satisfied at last, he flicked his hands to clean them of the clinging mud, his gauntlet tatters flapping madly, then struggled up the naked dirt slope.

  Reaching the top, he took a moment to catch his breath. Everyone waited silently for his judgement. He wiped a hand across his brow to brush away the beaded sweat but only succeeded in smearing a thick swipe of ochre-hued mud across his face.

  Murk hissed out an impatient breath. ‘So? Should we cross?’

  ‘What’s that? Cross? No. Not a good idea.’

  ‘So we don’t cross.’

  ‘No. I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Yes, you did – just now.’

  ‘No. That’s not what I said.’

  Murk took a quick breath to yell his frustration but Yusen raised a hand for silence. Murk clenched his teeth until they hurt. ‘So …’ the captain said to Sour, slowly, as if speaking to a child, ‘what should we do?’