‘And you are?’ some brave soul shouted from the crowd.
The ancient appeared quite startled. He planted his walking stick between his feet, announcing, ‘I am Kellanved, ruler of the isles of Malaz and Nap – and the ruling authority over the city state of Cawn, and now of Li Heng also.’
Heboric squinted – the fellow might look old, but he appeared startlingly quick and vigorous for one of such apparent age. He had to wonder: was this the one responsible for the summoning of the Elders?
This ‘Kellanved’ now stroked his chin. ‘And thinking on that …’ he turned to the blue-hued Napan woman with him, ‘does that not make me emperor? After the Talian hegemony? Ruler of more than one kingship?’
The woman’s lips tightened, and she murmured from the side of her mouth, ‘Now is not the time …’
The fellow banged his walking stick to the flagged floor. ‘Now is absolutely the appropriate time! This is momentous! It must be witnessed!’ He scanned the court, peering all around. ‘Is there no historian present? None qualified to record these events for posterity? For the ages to follow?’
Heboric looked about him, as did the hunched Dal Hon elder upon the throne. No one stirred to raise a hand, and so, driven by the demands and dictates of his training as scholar and historian, Heboric very slowly, reluctantly, lifted his arm into the air.
The ancient, Kellanved, perked up. ‘Ah!’ He pointed his walking stick. ‘Here we are. Fener is with us! Welcome, priest. Please approach.’
Heboric edged his way through the crowd to reach the fore. The elder urged him even closer. Hesitantly, he advanced, but quite warily, as the slim fellow on the elder’s right now leaned forward, hand on a dagger, and he knew that one false motion, one shift too close, and that weapon would be lodged in his throat. ‘Yes m’lor – that is, your excellency?’
The elder’s brows climbed in appreciation of this address, and he shifted to look to the woman. ‘There! You see? Our priest of Fener understands. ‘So … am I not entitled to style myself emperor after the historical precedents?’
Heboric bowed his head. ‘Indeed. If one is the ruler of more than one kingdom, principate, or protectorate, then one may claim the title emperor or empress.’
The elder opened his arms wide. ‘There we have it. Emperor Kellanved.’
The Napan woman, Heboric noted, looked to the ceiling at this announcement. But he was obliged to continue. ‘However, after these ancient precedents, the date of assumption of said emperor or empress must be set at their birth.’ He raised his gaze to address the fellow directly. ‘Therefore – may I enquire as to the year you were born?’
The Dal Hon ancient snorted at this, glancing about rather as if he’d been cornered. He gestured peremptorily. ‘What a ridiculous request! As if I can remember! And who knows which dating system to follow?’
‘Nevertheless …?’
The elder huffed, puffing and shifting uncomfortably on the throne. ‘Whatever! Very well. The fifth year of the rule of Gorashel of the Eastern Dal Hon savannas – if you must!’
It just so happened that Heboric had been briefed on all the dynasties of the continent. He eyed the wrinkled elder and could not help but raise a brow in scepticism. ‘Are you saying that you are less than twenty years old?’
The presumed ancient gaped at him, astonished, only to recover quickly and wave a hand in dismissal. ‘That is not what I meant at all! Absurd! No – what I meant was one hundred years prior to that year, of course!’
He may have been mistaken, but the slim youth with him, presumably the purported assassin Heboric had heard of, covered his mouth, perhaps to disguise a smirk.
‘That was not what you said,’ Heboric persisted.
Now the grey-haired Dal Hon mage urged him closer, leaning in, and whispered, ‘Very well – what say you we split the difference? Seventy? Yes? Can you work with that?’
Heboric could not drop his lifted brow. ‘I’m sorry, but I heard what I heard.’
The presumed elder threw himself back into the throne, gesturing aside. ‘Guards! Take this fool away! He is wilfully misinterpreting my meaning.’
The only guards present were Malazan troops. These respectfully motioned Heboric away, he being a priest of Fener after all.
‘Find a deep cell!’ Kellanved shouted after them. ‘Where he may reconsider his wilfulness, and recant his errors.’ Addressing the gathered court, the wizened Dal Hon announced, ‘Seventy! Did you hear that? The official imperial count shall be seventy years! So begins the rule of Emperor Kellanved! Now, any other historians or scholars present? Anyone?’
On his way out of the throne room with the guards, Heboric was hardly surprised when no one else spoke up.
*
Close to the river gate of the Inner Round, Smokey dug through the wreckage of the raiders’ passage, heaving aside planks, a shattered cart, dust and rubble of broken rock to pull a woman from beneath the heap. Dust sifted from her thick mane of wild kinky hair as she staggered upright, clutching his arm. ‘I was doing fine,’ she insisted, ‘until that Kartoolian waded in.’
Smokey nodded, guiding her to the gates. ‘They came with more than five.’
‘And Shalmanat?’
‘Stories are the T’lan Imass themselves returned to murder her.’
Mara spat blood and grit from her mouth. ‘The T’lan Imass, in truth? Hard to believe. So this dark wizard cut a deal with these Elders?’
‘So it would seem.’
She touched gingerly at a bleeding cut along her scalp. ‘Fucking bastard!’
‘We’re all that’s left,’ Smokey said.
‘Silk?’
‘Probably cut down by the Imass – he was with her.’
‘Ho?’
‘Witnesses say he was dragged down by replicas of him. Sounds unbelievable, but there you are.’
She held her head. ‘None of this makes any sense! Why here? Why now?’
He shrugged as he dragged her along through the ruined gate. ‘Had to strike somewhere, I suppose. As good a place as any. Now we have to go before those mages return looking for you.’
‘Did you see that gargoyle Hairlock among them?’
Smokey scowled his disgust. ‘Wanted from coast to coast, that one.’
She limped along, blinking, perhaps trying to focus her eyes. ‘Find a cart or a mule – I can’t walk. That Kartoolian is a powerful bastard.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll find something.’
‘Then what?’
‘Don’t know. Wasn’t joking earlier when I said I was thinking of joining the Crimson Guard.’
Mara laughed her scorn at that. Laughed, then held her head, groaning.
*
Silk didn’t remember descending the tower and making his way out of the palace. Everything seemed blacked out, an unreal blur, but now that he was at the waterfront he realized that he was about to be captured. These raider mages, their Warrens raised and sizzling, were still hunting for the last remnants of the Five, himself included.
Frankly, he didn’t care what happened to him any more. It was all over. But the idea of submitting to these murderers repulsed him. He kept ducking away, moving on, and his retreat brought him to the wharves and piers crowded by the invaders’ riverboats. Here Silk spotted one of the hunting mages, a squat and hairless nut-brown fellow, his Warren a bright aura about him, scanning the crowds of milling citizenry, and he jumped down to a lower floating dock where a mass of men stood jammed together, their clothes just as dirty and torn as his own. A fat fellow armed with a truncheon pushed through the crowd to wave him off.
‘You’re not allowed here!’
Hand at his side, Silk turned his cupped palm to show his coin-purse. The fellow’s thick black brows narrowed as he peered right and left, then he brushed past Silk, taking it. ‘Name?’ he demanded.
‘Yusen,’ Silk offered, borrowing a friend’s name.
The fellow pointed his truncheon. ‘Get in line … Yusen.’
&n
bsp; The line filled a long twisting gangway up on to one of the larger riverboats – a trireme galley. Here armed sailors pushed the file of men down into the narrow alleys of its rowing benches. Silk held back, alarmed, but he could not resist the long line of men behind him, pushing him forward, and so eventually he ended up next to an empty berth and his companions gestured forcefully that he should sit on the filthy bench.
The last thing he wanted to do at this point was bring any attention to himself and so he complied, all the while straining for a glimpse of the pier through the oar-port, searching for his pursuers. He spotted the squat, scowling fellow now talking with another mage, this one tall and lean, in dark severe robes, his raised aura particularly intense. He hunched back down among the ranks of rowers.
‘This is a Cawnese vessel, yes?’ he asked the fellow next to him.
‘A privateer vessel,’ was the answer. ‘Under hire.’
Silk studied the interior once more, a touch confused. ‘We are not fettered?’
His companion on the bench appeared quite startled. ‘Of course not. We made our agreements, signed our papers.’
‘Papers? Agreement?’
His companion looked him up and down. ‘Are you all right? Did you take a fall?’
Silk touched his head to find there dried crusted blood. He didn’t remember falling, but he must have at some point, probably on the stairs. ‘It’s nothing. Please – papers, you say?’
‘Yes. Service to cover your debts in Cawn, of course.’
Silk stared, though somehow he managed not to gape. ‘So,’ he said, nodding, ‘this vessel is contracted to the Cawnese.’
‘Oh, no,’ the fellow answered. ‘It’s not. It’s contracted to the Malazans. You are in their service now.’
This time Silk did gape. Then he burst out with a high laugh. Somewhere the gods were holding their stomachs in hilarity; they had done their job and completely and utterly destroyed the complacent, prideful, comfortable and recently getting fat Silk. He was frankly almost in awe of their thoroughness – right down to the poetic end.
He just laughed, and kept laughing, chuckling on and on and shaking his head, until the point when all those around him exchanged knowing looks and touched fingers to their temples in pity.
Chapter 21
What Orjin and his remaining troop were doing now could no longer be described as fighting. Fleeing was more like it. Whenever they encountered a column of Quon Talian soldiers they ran westward, and the enemy commander Renquill, no fool, was happy to drive them onwards towards the coast.
The word ‘remaining’ was the one Orjin adopted as his force dwindled before his eyes. Understandably so, as exhaustion and hunger became unbearable, and injuries worsened. Desertions increased as well, admittedly, as hopes faded.
Still, those remaining jogged onward, and Orjin constantly checked in with the hill-tribe guides, who would shake their heads, rather embarrassed. ‘Found it?’ he constantly asked, and they would look away, lowering their gazes.
‘It is a very narrow opening. Difficult to locate.’
‘Well … keep looking.’ And they would nod and run off to search anew.
That night, the western ocean in sight from the slope occupied by Orjin and his troops, word came of the sighting of the gorge entrance. He signed for everyone to move out.
Word also came that the rear elements were in running contact with Talian forces. Orjin and Orhan both jogged for the rear, but Prevost Jeral intercepted them, urging them forward and running ahead. Cursing, Orjin turned for the front.
He found the Wickan, Arkady, together with the guides guarding a slash in the steep slope less than two paces across – more of a hole than any sort of gorge.
‘This is it?’ he demanded of the hill youths, incredulous.
‘No one ventures here any more,’ one explained.
‘Fine! I’ll go.’ Orjin started forward.
But Arkady edged down ahead of him. ‘We will explore – wave down the troops.’
Orjin snarled his frustration, but complied, waving the men and women forward. Below, Arkady struck a torch and its light blossomed. Orjin urged the stragglers onward.
Arrows now came flying out of the darkness surrounding them, and he hunched. More and more of his remaining troops emerged from the dark and he pushed them on and down, clapping shoulders, pressing them forward.
Last of all came Prevost Jeral with a band of some twenty. ‘The Talians are hot on our heels,’ she announced, panting, her blade bared.
He gestured her down the crevasse. ‘Get going!’
‘After you.’
‘No. No rearguard. They won’t come chasing after us into this cave. They’ll think us cornered. Now go on!’
‘Fine.’ She waved her band down among the brush-choked rocks.
Torches now waved about them and Orjin caught the glint of starlight from blades and armour. He pushed Jeral down and followed, backwards, feeling his way.
Within, the ground continued downward in a slope of loose broken rock. He could hear it clattering and sloughing underfoot as the men and women descended. Torches shone below, showing a narrow stone throat.
After some stumbling and sliding on the loose debris, he reached the bottom to end up standing ankle-deep in frigid water along with everyone else. Arkady was waiting here, together with one of the hill-tribe lads.
‘This is an old underground riverbed,’ the lad explained. ‘We follow this for a time.’
Orjin nodded. ‘Fair enough. Let’s take the van.’ He turned to Jeral nearby. ‘Will you watch the rear now?’
She nodded – a touch sourly, as both knew the danger now resided ahead. Renquill would no doubt take his time above, calling for them to surrender, perhaps even tossing combustibles down.
Orjin now passed the long file of his surviving troops to the fore, where three of their guides waited together with the giant Orhan. He was uneasy to see these habitually sombre and guarded youths appearing nervous. He nodded a greeting, took a torch, and advanced up the narrow course of the waterway.
The bone-chilling water rose at times to their waists, while at other times the chute lowered or narrowed to the point where Orjin had to slide along sideways, or hunched double. Poor Orhan had to crawl nearly on his stomach through these choke-points. The way continued ever onwards, however, without any dead end or impassable barrier – so far.
Eventually, they did come to something of a dead end: a cliff where the waters cascaded over, arching downwards into misted darkness.
‘How far?’ Orjin asked over the roar of the falls.
The youths appeared uncertain. ‘We do not know. Beyond is the cavern of the … of it.’
Orjin looked to Orhan. ‘Throw a torch.’ The huge fellow tossed down his torch and everyone watched it tumble to land amid rocks. Some ten fathoms, Orjin reckoned it. ‘Do we have any rope?’ he asked of the troop at large. Heads turned, peering round, but no one spoke up. Wonderful, he thought. No one held on to any rope. ‘Fine. I’ll try climbing down.’ He handed Orhan his weapon and knelt at the edge, feeling down over the cliff.
At least it was solid rock and not rotten crumbling sandstone or shale. He found handholds and slowly, his way lit from above, he felt his way down the cliff face to piled fallen detritus, the talus slope. ‘Not too difficult!’ he shouted up. ‘Did you see that?’
‘Yes,’ Arkady answered. ‘We will follow. Do not move!’
Orjin remained where he stood – feeling rather foolish standing unarmed in the lair of some sort of reputed eldritch horror.
When perhaps half of his troops had descended, Orjin turned to the hill-tribe youths. ‘Thank you, but you needn’t go on from here. Just tell us the way.’
‘No one alive knows the way from this point onward,’ one said. ‘We will come.’
Orjin nodded his gratitude. He glanced to Orhan and Arkady. ‘Let’s take a look.’
They explored the cavern. At one point starlight streamed downwards from some
hidden crack above. The bones of animals that had tumbled into the gap above lay broken amid the rocks here. Listening, Orjin thought he could almost hear the surf rolling against the rocky shore. The cavern narrowed here, the water rising to their knees.
He might have been fooling himself, but he thought he saw the glint of light just above the water level far ahead. ‘Is that an opening?’ he asked Arkady.
The Wickan did not answer. Glancing at him, Orjin saw the fellow staring aside, hand white on the grip of his curved long-knife.
What Orjin had taken for a pile of pale rocks off to one side now shifted, rising, climbing ever higher until he found himself staring upward at a great upright lizard standing at some four fathoms of bones and withered flesh. Yet it stood awkwardly, tilted, and he saw that the bones of one thick leg were broken.
The hill-tribe youths all gaped, frozen.
Yune came, pushing forward. ‘Not a dragon!’ he yelled. ‘Though I understand the confusion. A K’Chain Che’Malle warrior.’
Orhan had given back Orjin’s two-handed sword and now he drew it. ‘I don’t give a damn what it is – can it be killed?’
‘It appears preserved against rot somehow. Undying. Perhaps it fell from above ages ago,’ Yune told him. ‘It will have to be dismembered.’
‘Dismembered!’ Orjin snarled, appalled. ‘Fine. Orhan, you distract it and I’ll go for the other leg.’
Prevost Jeral had pushed forward. ‘No! All at once! Too many targets, yes?’
The creature struggled to advance upon them, dragging its shattered rear leg.
Orjin cursed again. ‘Right! All at once – we overpower it.’ He raised his sword overhead, bellowing, ‘All who would dare … draw your weapons and attack!’
He did not wait to see how many actually took him up on his challenge and charged in. The creature took great wide sweeps with its forelimbs, knocking soldiers flying aside. With his two-handed sword and brute strength, Orjin managed to deflect one such sweep, but it took far too much out of him to be worth it, and he ducked from then on. Some few managed to reach the good leg and they hacked at the bone and withered dried ligaments. The beast brushed them off, and too many of the tossed men and women did not rise again from where they’d fallen among the rocks.
Kellanved's Reach (Path to Ascendancy) Page 35