The Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  'The gatekeeper,' Banaschar said. 'Top of the stairs, Mock's Hold. The gate watchman, Braven Tooth, I assume you know him. Seems he's been there as long as you've been training soldiers.'

  'There's knowing and there's knowing. That bell-backed old crab, now, let me tell you something about him. I could send legion after legion of my cuddly little recruits up them stairs, with every weapon at their disposal, and they'd never get past him. Why? I'll tell you why. It ain't that Lubben's some champion or Mortal Sword or something. No, it's that I got more brains lodged up my left nostril waitin' for my finger than all my so-called recruits got put together.'

  'That doesn't tell me anything about Lubben, Braven Tooth, only your opinion of your recruits, which it seems I already surmised.'

  'Just so,' said the man, nodding.

  Banaschar rubbed at his face. 'Lubben. Listen, I need to talk with someone, someone holed up in Mock's. I send messages, they get into Lubben's hands, and then... nothing.'

  'So who's that you want to talk to?'

  'I'd rather not say.'

  'Oh, him.'

  'So, is Lubben dropping those messages down that slimy chute the effluence of which so decorously paints the cliff-side?'

  'Efflu-what? No. Tell you what, how about I head up there and take that You'd rather not say by the overlong out-of-style braid on top of his head and give 'im a shake or three?'

  'I don't see how that would help.'

  'Well, it'd cheer me up, not for any particular gripe, mind you, but just on principle. Maybe You'd rather not say'd rather not talk to you, have you thought of that? Or maybe you'd rather not.'

  'I have to talk to him.'

  'Important, huh?'

  'Yes.'

  'Imperial interest?'

  'No, at least I don't think so.'

  'Tell you what, I'll grab him by his cute braid and dangle him from the tower. You can signal from below. I swing him back and forth and it means he says "Sure, come on up, old friend". And if I just drop 'im it means the other thing. That, or my hands got tired and maybe slipped.'

  'You're not helpful at all, Braven Tooth.'

  'Wasn't me sitting at your table, was you sitting at mine.'

  Banaschar leaned back, sighing. 'Fine. Here, I'll buy you some more tea—'

  'What, you trying to poison me now?'

  'All right, how about we share a pitcher of Malazan Dark?'

  The huge man leaned forward, meeting Banaschar's eyes for the first time. 'Better. Y'see, I'm in mourning.'

  'Oh?'

  'The news from Y'Ghatan.' He snorted. 'It's always the news from Y'Ghatan, ain't it? Anyway, I've lost some friends.'

  'Ah.'

  'So, tonight,' Braven Tooth said, 'I plan on getting drunk. For them. I can't cry unless I'm drunk, you see.'

  'So why the red-vine tea?'

  Braven Tooth looked up as someone arrived, and gave the man an ugly smile. 'Ask Temper here. Why the red-vine tea, you old hunkered-down bastard?'

  'Plan on crying tonight, Braven Tooth?'

  The Master Sergeant nodded.

  Temper levered himself into a chair that creaked alarm­ingly beneath him. Red-shot eyes fixed on Banaschar. 'Makes his tears the colour of blood. Story goes, he's only done it once before, and that was when Dassem Ultor died.'

  Gods below, must I witness this tonight?

  'It's what I get,' Braven Tooth muttered, head down once more, 'for believin' everything I hear.'

  Banaschar frowned at the man opposite him. Now what does that mean?

  The pitcher of ale arrived, as if conjured by their silent desires, and Banaschar, relieved of further contemplation — and every other demanding stricture of thought — settled back, content to weather yet another night.

  'Aye, Master (or Mistress), he sat with them veterans, pre' tending he belonged, but really he's just an imposter. Sat there all night, until Coop had to carry him out. Where is he now? why, in his smelly, filthy room, dead to the world. Yes indeed, Banaschar is dead to the world.'

  ****

  The rain descended in torrents, streaming over the battle­ments, down along the blood-gutters, and the cloud overhead had lowered in the past twenty heartbeats, swallowing the top of the old tower. The window Pearl looked through had once represented the pinnacle of island technology, a fusing of sand to achieve a bubbled, mottled but mostly transparent glass. Now, a century later, its surface was patinated in rainbow patterns, and the world beyond was patchy, like an incomplete mosaic, the tesserae melting in some world-consuming fire. Although sight of the flames eluded Pearl, he knew, with fearful certainty, that they were there, and no amount of rain from the skies could change that.

  It had been flames, after all, that had destroyed his world. Flames that took her, the only woman he had ever loved. And there had been no parting embrace, no words of comfort and assurance exchanged. No, just that edgy dance round each other, and neither he nor Lostara had seemed capable of deciding whether that dance was desire or spite.

  Even here, behind this small window and the thick stone walls, he could hear the battered, encrusted weather vane somewhere overhead, creaking and squealing in the buffet­ing gusts of wind assailing Mock's Hold. And he and Lostara had been no different from that weather vane, spinning, tossed this way and that, helpless victim to forces ever beyond their control. Beyond, even, their compre­hension. And didn't that sound convincing? Hardly.

  The Adjunct had sent them on a quest, and when its grisly end arrived, Pearl had realized that the entire journey had been but a prelude — as far as his own life was con­cerned — and that his own quest yet awaited him. Maybe it had been simple enough — the object of his desire would proclaim to his soul the consummation of that quest. Maybe she had been what he sought. But Pearl was not certain of that, not any more. Lostara Yil was dead, and that which drove him, hounded him, was unabated. Was in fact growing.

  Hood take this damned, foul city anyway. Why must imperial events ever converge here? Because, he answered himself, Genabackis had Pale. Korel had the Stormwall. Seven Cities has Y'Ghatan. In the heart of the Malazan Empire, we have Maiaz City. Where it began, so it returns, again and again. And again. Festering sores that never heal, and when the fever rises, the blood wells forth, sudden, a deluge.

  He imagined that blood sweeping over the city below, climbing the cliff-side, lapping against the very stones of Mock's Hold. Would it rise higher?

  'It is my dream,' said the man sitting cross-legged in the room behind him.

  Pearl did not turn. 'What is?'

  'Not understanding this reluctance of yours, Claw.'

  'I assure you,' Pearl said, 'the nature of my report to the Empress will upend this tidy cart of yours. I was there, I saw—'

  'You saw what you wanted to see. No witness in truth but myself, regarding the events now being revisited. Revised, yes? As all events are, for such is the exercise of quill-clawed carrion who title themselves historians. Revisiting, thirsting for a taste, just a taste, of what it is to know trauma in one's quailing soul. Pronouncing with authority, yes, on that in which the proclaimant in truth has no authority. I alone survive as witness. I alone saw, breathed the air, tasted the treachery.'

  Pearl would not turn to face the fat, unctuous man. He dare not, lest his impulse overwhelm him — an impulse to lift an arm, to flex the muscles of his wrist just so, and launch a poison-sheathed quarrel into the flabby neck of Mallick Rel, the Jhistal priest of Mael.

  He knew he would likely fail. He would be dead before he finished raising that arm. This was Mallick Rel's chamber, after all, his residence. Wards carved into the floor, rituals suspended in the damp air, enough sorcery to set teeth on edge and raise hairs on the nape of the neck. Oh, officially this well-furnished room might be referred to as a cell, but that euphemistic absurdity would not last much longer.

  The bastard's agents were everywhere. Whispering their stories in taverns, on street corners, beneath the straddled legs of whores and noblewomen. The Jhistal p
riest was fast becoming a hero — the lone survivor of the Fall at Aren, the only loyal one, that is. The one who managed to escape the clutches of the traitors, be they Sha'ik's own, or the betray­ers in the city of Aren itself. Mallick Rel, who alone professes to know the truth.

  There were seeds from a certain grass that grew on the Seti Plains, Pearl recalled, that were cleverly barbed, so that when they snagged on something, or someone, they were almost impossible to remove. Barbed husks, that weakened and cracked apart only after the host had travelled far. Such were rumours, carried on breaths from one host to the next, the barbs holding fast. And when the necessary time has passed, when every seed is in place, what then? What shall unfold at Mallick Rel's command? Pearl did not want to think about it.

  Nor did he want to think about this: he was very frightened.

  'Claw, speak with him.'

  'Him. I admit, I cannot yet decide which "him" you are referring to, priest. In neither case, alas, can I fathom your reasons for making such a request of me. Tayschrenn is no friend of yours—'

  'Nor is he a fool, Claw. He sees far ahead, does Tayschrenn. No, there is no reason I would urge you to speak with the Imperial High Mage. His position grows ever more precarious as it is. You seek, yes, to confabulate? Plainly, then, I urge you, Claw, to descend to the catacombs, and there speak with Korbolo Dom. You have not heard his story, and in humility I would advise, it is time that you did.'

  Pearl closed his eyes on the rain-lashed scene through the window. 'Of course. He was in truth an agent of Laseen's, even when he fought on behalf of Sha'ik. His Dogslayers, they were in place to turn upon Sha'ik and crush her utterly, including killing both Toblakai and Leoman of the Flails. But there, during the Chain of Dogs, he stumbled upon a greater betrayal in the making. Oh yes, Mallick Rel, I can see how you and he will twist this — I imagine you two have worked long and hard, during those countless "illegal" sojourns of yours down in the cat­acombs — indeed, I know of them — the Claw remain outside your grasp, and that will not change, I assure you.'

  'It is best,' the man said in his sibilant voice, 'that you consider my humble suggestion, Claw, for the good of your sect.'

  'For the good of...' Gods below, he feels ready to threaten the Claw! How far has all this madness gone? I must speak with Topper — maybe it's not too late...

  'This rain,' Mallick Rel continued behind him, 'it shall make the seas rise, yes?'

  Chapter Eighteen

  Truth is a pressure, and I see us all shying away. But, my friends, from truth there can be no escape.

  The Year of Ten Thousand Lies, Kayessan

  A rhizan, clinging to the limp folds of the imperial standard, its hunger forgotten, its own life but a quiescent spark within its tiny body, had listened intently to the entire conversation.

  A dromon was easing its way among the nearest transports, towing a sleek, black-hulled warship; and from the shoreline watched the Adjunct and Admiral Nok, along with Fist Keneb, Quick Ben and Kalam Mekhar. Few words were exchanged among them, until the arrival of Sergeant Gesler and Corporal Stormy. At that point, things got interesting.

  'Adjunct,' Gesler said in greeting. 'That's our ship. That's the Silanda.'

  Admiral Nok was studying the gold-hued marine. 'Sergeant, I understand you claim that you can sail that unpleasant craft.'

  A nod. 'With a couple squads, aye, and that's it. As for the crew below manning the oars, well, when we need 'em to row, they'll row.'

  Stormy added, 'We lived with 'em long enough they don't scare us no more, sir, not even Gesler here an' he jumps every time he looks in that fancy silver mirror of his. An' those heads, they don't make our skins crawl neither, no more—'

  'Stop talking like a sailor, Adjutant Stormy,' Nok said.

  A smile amidst the red, bristling beard. 'Ain't no Adjutant any more, Admiral.'

  Thin brows rose, and Nok said, 'Title alone gifts the bearer with intelligence?'

  Stormy nodded. 'That it does, sir. Which is why Gesler's a sergeant and I'm a corporal. We get stupider every year that passes.'

  'And Stormy's proud of that,' Gesler said, slapping his companion on the back.

  The Adjunct rubbed at her eyes. She examined the tips of her leather gloves, then slowly began removing the gauntlets. 'I see by the waterline she's fully provisioned...'

  'Food does not spoil in that hold,' Nok said. 'That much my mages have determined. Furthermore, there are no rats or other vermin.' He hesitated, then sighed. 'In any case, I could find no sailors who would volunteer to crew the Silanda. And I have no intention of forcing the issue.' He shrugged. 'Adjunct, if they truly want it...'

  'Very well. Sergeant Gesler, your own squad and two others.'

  'The Fourth and Ninth, Adjunct.'

  Her gaze narrowed on the man, then she turned to Keneb. 'Fist? They're your resurrected squads.'

  'The Fourth — that would be Strings's—'

  'For Hood's sake,' the Adjunct said. 'His name is Fiddler. It is the worst-kept secret in this army, Keneb.'

  'Of course. My apologies, Adjunct. Fiddler's, then, and the Ninth — let's see, Sergeant Balm's squad. Abyss take us, Gesler, what a snarly bunch of malcontents you've selected.'

  'Yes sir.'

  'All right.' Keneb hesitated, then turned to Tavore.

  'Adjunct, may I suggest that the Silanda hold a flanking position to your own flagship at all times.'

  Mock dismay on Gesler's face and he punched Stormy in the arm and said, 'They don't trust us, Stormy.'

  'Shows what they know, don't it?'

  'Aye, it does. Damn me, they're smarter than we thought.'

  'Sergeant Gesler,' the Adjunct said, 'take your corporal and get out of here.'

  'Aye, Adjunct.'

  The two marines hurried off.

  After a moment, Admiral Nok laughed, briefly, under his breath, then said, 'Adjunct, I must tell you, I am... relieved.'

  'To leave the Silanda to those idiots?'

  'No, Tavore. The unexpected arrival of more survivors from Y'Ghatan, with soldiers such as Fiddler, Cuttle, Gesler and Stormy among them — and—' he turned to Quick Ben and Kalam, 'you two as well. The transformation within your army, Adjunct, has been... palpable. It is often forgotten by commanders, the significance of storied veterans, especially among young, untried soldiers. Added to that, the extraordinary tale of their survival beneath the streets of Y'Ghatan,' he shook his head. 'In all, a most encouraging development.'

  'I agree,' Tavore said, glancing at Keneb. 'It was, for the most part, these soldiers who at the very beginning embraced what could have been seen as a terrible omen, and made of it a thing of strength. None of us were fully cognizant of it at the time, but it was there, in Aren, at that first parade, that the Bonehunters were born.' The others were all staring at her. Her brows lifted fractionally.

  Keneb cleared his throat. 'Adjunct, the Bonehunters may well have been birthed that day in Aren, but it only drew its first breath yesterday.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'We were wondering,' Kalam said to her, 'where that decoration came from. The one you presented, with your own hand, to Captain Faradan Sort and the witch Sinn.'

  'Ah, yes. Well, I can make no claim regarding that. The design of that sigil was by T'amber's hand. There were jewelsmiths in her family, I understand, and she passed a few years of her youth as an apprentice. Nonetheless, I do not see how that ceremony achieved little more than a confirmation of what already existed.'

  'Adjunct,' Fist Keneb said, 'it was your confirmation that was needed. To make it real. I do not wish to offend you, but before then, you were the Adjunct. You were Laseen's. Her property.'

  Her expression was suddenly flat, dangerous. 'And now, Fist?'

  But it was Kalam who answered. 'Now, you belong to the Fourteenth.'

  'You belong to us,' Keneb said.

  The moment should have ended there, and all would have been well. Better than well. It would have been perfect. Instead, they saw, upon T
avore's expression, a grow­ing... dismay. And fear. And at first, neither emotion made any sense.

  Unless...

  Unless she was unable to return such loyalty.

  And so the doubt twisted free, like newborn vipers slithering from their clutch of eggs, and tiny, deadly fangs sank into every figure standing there, witness to what her face revealed.

  Revealed. And this from a woman whose self-control was damned near inhuman.

  Startled into life, the rhizan lizard dropped free of its perch, wheeled once then flitted off, down along the strand, where it alighted on the white flank of a huge tree-trunk some past storm had flung ashore, the creature's legs spread wide, belly to the wood, its tiny sides palpitating. Distracted and frightened, Bottle reached out to brush one fingertip between the rhizan's eyes, a gesture intended to offer comfort, even as he released his hold upon its life-spark. The creature fled in a flurry of wings and whipping tail.

  And now, five days later, Bottle found himself on the foredeck of the Silanda, staring back down the ship to that tarp-covered heap of severed heads that Stormy called his brain's trust. Amusing, yes, but Bottle knew those undying eyes were piercing the frayed fabric of the canvas, watching him. In expectation. Of what? Damn you, I can't help you, poor fools. You have to see that!

  Besides, he had plenty of other things to worry over right now. So many, in fact, that he did not know where to start. He had seen the sigil, the decoration the Adjunct had presented to Faradan Sort at what should have been her courtmartial, and to the mute child Sinn — not that she was in truth mute, Bottle knew. The urchin just had very little to say to anyone, barring her brother Shard. The sigil... in silver, a city wall over which rose ruby flames, and the sloped tel beneath that wall, a mass of gold human skulls. The echo of the Bridgeburners' old sigil was not accident — no, it was sheer genius. T'amber's genius.

  By the end of that same day, iron needles and silk threads were out as blunted fingers worked with varying degrees of talent, and military issue cloaks found a new decoration among the soldiers of the Fourteenth Army. To go along with dangling finger bones, the occasional bird skull and drilled teeth.