The Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  Screams from the street below, then the sound of a door smashing into kindling.

  Braven Tooth glanced up, wiped at his eyes.

  Heavy footsteps on the stairs.

  Gesler collected the wine jug from the table and slowly refilled the cups. No-one had touched the bread.

  Thumping steps coming up the corridor. Scraping, dragging.

  Halting before the Master Sergeant's door.

  Then a heavy, splintering knock, like claws gouging the wood.

  Gesler rose and walked over.

  Fiddler watched as the sergeant opened the door, stood motionless for a long moment, staring at whoever was in the corridor, then Gesler said, 'Stormy, it's for you.'

  The huge man slowly rose as Gesler turned about and walked back to his chair.

  A shape filled the entrance. Broad-shouldered, wearing tattered, dripping furs. A flat face, the skin betel brown and stretched taut over robust bones. Pits for eyes. Long arms hanging to the sides. Fiddler's brows rose. A T'lan Imass.

  Stormy cleared his throat. 'Legana Breed,' he said, his voice oddly high.

  The reply that rasped from the apparition was like the grating of barrow stones. 'I have come for my sword, mortal.'

  Gesler collapsed into his chair and collected his cup. 'A long, wet walk, was it, Breed?'

  The head swivelled with a creak, but the T'lan Imass said nothing.

  Stormy collected the flint sword and walked over to Legana Breed. 'You been scaring a lot of people below,' he said.

  'Sensitive souls, you mortals.'

  The marine held the sword out, horizontally. 'Took your time getting out of that portal.'

  Legana Breed grasped it. 'Nothing is ever as easy as it seems, Shield Anvil. Carry the pain in your heart and know this: you are far from finished with this world.'

  Fiddler glanced across at Braven Tooth. Shield Anvil?

  The Master Sergeant simply shook his head.

  Legana Breed was studying the weapon in his skeletal hands. 'It's scratched.'

  'What? Oh, but I — oh, well—'

  'Humour is extinct,' the T'lan Imass said, turning back to the doorway.

  Gesler suddenly straightened. 'A moment, Legana Breed!'

  The creature paused.

  'Stormy did all that you asked of him. Now, we need repayment.'

  Sweat sprang out on Fiddler's skin. Gesler!

  The T'lan Imass faced them again. 'Repayment. Shield Anvil, did not my weapon serve you well?'

  'Aye, well enough.'

  'Then there is no debt—'

  'Not true!' Gesler said in a growl. 'We saw you take that Tiste Andii head with you! But we told your fellow T'lan Imass nothing — we kept your secret, Legana Breed! When we could have bargained with it, gotten ourselves right out of that damned mess we were in! There is a debt!'

  Silence from the ancient undead warrior, then, 'What do you demand of me?'

  'We — me, Stormy and Fiddler here — we need an escort. Back to our ship. It could mean a fight.'

  'There are four thousand mortals between us and the docks,' Legana Breed said. 'One and all driven into mad­ness by chaotic sorcery.'

  'And?' Gesler sneered. 'Are you afraid, T'lan Imass?'

  'Afraid.' A declarative statement. Then the head cocked. 'Humour?'

  'So what's the problem?'

  'The docks.' Hesitation, then, 'I just came from there.'

  Fiddler began collecting his gear. 'With answers like that one, Legana Breed,' he said, 'you belong in the marines.' He glanced over at Braven Tooth. 'Well met, old friend.'

  The Master Sergeant nodded. 'And with you. The three of you. Sorry about punching you in the gut, Fid.'

  'Like Hood you are.'

  'I didn't know it was you—'

  'To Hood you didn't.'

  'All right, I heard you come in. Heard cloth against fiddle strings. Smelled Moranth munitions. Not hard with all that.'

  'So you punched me anyway?'

  Braven Tooth smiled. The particular smile that gave the bastard his name.

  Legana Breed spoke: 'You are all marines?'

  'Aye,' Fiddler said.

  'Tonight, then, I too am a marine. Let us go kill people.'

  ****

  Throatslitter clambered up the gangplank, stumbled down onto the deck. 'Fist,' he gasped, 'we need to call more in — we none of us can hold much longer—'

  'No, soldier,' Keneb replied, his gaze fixed on the vicious fighting on the concourse before them, the ever-contract­ing Perish lines, the ever-growing mass of frenzied attackers pouring in from every street and alley mouth between ware­house buildings. Don't you see? We commit more and we get pulled deeper into this mess, deeper and deeper — until we cannot extricate ourselves. There's too much sorcery out there — gods below, my head feels ready to explode. He so wanted to explain all of this to the desperate marine, but that was not what a commander did.

  Just like the Adjunct. You want to, gods how you want to, if only to see the understanding in their eyes. But you cannot. All right, so I'm starting to comprehend...

  'Attend, Fist Keneb!' The warning came from the Destriant. 'Assassins, seeking to penetrate our defences—'

  A hiss from Throatslitter, and he turned, called down to the marines on the jetty. 'Sergeant! Get the squads up here! We got Claws on the way!'

  Keneb faced Run'Thurvian. 'Can you block them?'

  A slow nod of the suddenly pallid face. 'This time, yes —at the last moment — but they are persistent, and clever. When they breach, they will appear, suddenly, all about us.'

  'Who is their target? Do you know?'

  'All of us, I believe. Perhaps, most of all,' the Destriant glanced over at Nil and Nether, who stood on the foredeck, silent witnesses to the defence, 'those two. Their power sleeps. For now, it cannot be awakened — it is not for us, you see. Not for us.'

  Hood's breath. He turned to see the first marines arrive. Koryk, Tarr, Smiles — damn you, Fiddler, where are you? —then Cuttle and Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas. A moment later Sergeant Balm appeared, followed by Gait and Lobe. 'Sergeant, where is your healer — and your mage?'

  'Used up,' the Dal Honese replied. 'They're recovering on the Silanda, sir.'

  'Very well. I want you to form a cordon around Nil and Nether — the Claw will go for them first and foremost.' As the soldiers scrambled he turned to Run'Thurvian, and said in a low voice, 'I assume you can protect yourself, Destriant.'

  'Yes, I have held myself in abeyance, anticipating such a moment. But what of you, Fist Keneb?'

  'I doubt I'm important enough.' Then something occurred to him and he called over to the marines. 'Smiles! Head down to the First Mate's cabin — warn Quick Ben and if you can, convince him to get up here.' He made his way to the starboard rail, leaned out to study the fighting at the base of the jetty.

  There were uniformed Malazan soldiers amidst the mob, now, all pretence gone. Armoured, many with shields, others holding back with crossbows, sending one quarrel after another into the line of Perish. The foreign allies had been pushed back almost to the jetty itself.

  Cuttle was on the foredeck, yelling at the ballista crew – the sapper held a handful of fishing net in one hand and a large round object in the other. A cusser. After a moment the crew stepped back and Cuttle set to affixing the munition just behind the head of the oversized dart.

  Nice thinking. A messy way to clear a space, but there's little choice.

  Smiles returned, hurried up to Keneb. 'Fist, he's not there.'

  'What?'

  'He's gone!'

  'Very well. Never mind. Go join your squad, soldier.'

  From somewhere in Malaz City, a bell sounded, the sonorous tones ringing four times. Gods below, is that all?

  ****

  Lieutenant Pores stood beside his captain, staring across the dark water to the mayhem at Centre Docks. 'We're losing, sir,' he said.

  'That's precisely why I made you an officer,' Kindly replied. 'Your extraordinary pe
rceptiveness. And no, Lieutenant, we will not disobey our orders. We remain here.'

  'It's not proper, sir,' Pores persisted. 'Our allies are dying there — it's not even their fight.'

  'What they choose to do is their business.'

  'Still not proper, sir.'

  'Lieutenant, are you truly that eager to kill fellow Malazans? If so, get out of that armour and you can swim ashore. With Oponn's luck the sharks won't find you, despite my fervent prayers to the contrary. And you'll arrive just in time to get your head lopped off, forcing me to find myself a new lieutenant, which, I grant you, will not be hard, all things considered. Maybe Hanfeno, now there's officer material — to the level of lieutenant and no higher, of course. Almost as thick and pig-headed as you. Now go on, climb out of that armour, so Senny can start laying bets.'

  'Thank you, sir, but I'd rather not.'

  'Very well. But one more complaint from you, Lieutenant, and I'll throw you over the side myself.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'In your armour.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'After docking your pay for the loss of equipment.'

  'Of course, Captain.'

  'And if you keep trying to get the last word here I think I will kill you outright.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Lieutenant.'

  Pores clamped his jaws shut, and held off. For the moment.

  ****

  With barely a whisper, the figure landed on the sundered, pitched rooftop. Paused to look round at the sprawl on corpses. Then approached the gaping hole near one end.

  As it neared, another figure seemed to materialize as if from nowhere, crouched down on one knee above a body lying face-down near the breach. A quarrel was buried deep in that body's back, the fletching fashioned of fish bone —the cheek sections of some large sea-dwelling species, pale and semi-translucent. The newcomer swung a ghostly face up to regard the one who approached.

  'The Clawmaster killed me,' the apparition said in a rasp, gesturing to its own body beneath it. 'Even as I cursed his name with my last breath. I think... yes, I think that is why I am still here, not yet ready to walk through Hood's Gate. It is a gift... to you. He killed Kalam Mekhar. With Kartoolian paralt.' The ghost turned slightly and gestured to the edge of the hole. 'Kalam — he pulled the quarrel loose... no point of course, it makes no difference since the paralt's in his blood. But I did not tell Pearl — it's right there, balanced on the very lip. Take it. There is plenty of poison left. Take it. For the Clawmaster.'

  A moment later the ghost was gone.

  The cloth-wrapped figure crouched down and collected the blood-smeared quarrel in one gloved hand. Tucked it into a fold of the sash belt, then straightened, and set off.

  ****

  Through skeins of vicious sorcery, the lone figure moved with blinding speed down the street, deftly avoiding every snare — the coruscating pockets of High Ruse, the whisper­ing invitations of Mockra — and then into the light-stealing paths of Rashan where assassins of the Claw had raced along only moments earlier — and onto their trail, fast closing, a dagger in each leather-clad hand.

  Near the harbourfront the Claws began emerging from their warrens, massing by the score, moments from launch­ing an all-out assault on the foreign soldiers, on everyone aboard the two moored ships.

  Approaching fast from behind, the figure's movements acquired a fluidity, sinuous, weaving a flow of shadows, and the approach that had been quick transformed into some­thing else — faster than a mortal eye could perceive in this night of gloom and smoke — and then the lone attacker struck the first of the Hands.

  Blood sprayed, sheeted into the air, bodies spun to either side from its path, a whirlwind of death tearing into the ranks. Claws spun round, shouted, screamed, and died.

  ****

  Clawmaster Pearl turned at the sounds. He was positioned over twenty Hands from the rearguard — a rearguard now down, writhing or motionless on the cobbles, as something – someone — tore through them. Gods below. A Shadow Dancer. Who — Cotillion? Cold terror seized his chest with piercing talons. The god. The Patron of Assassins — coming for me.

  In Kalam Mekhar's name, coming for me!

  He spun round, eyes searching frantically for a bolt-hole. To Hood with the Hands! Pearl pushed his way clear, then ran.

  An alley, narrow between two warehouses, swallowed in darkness. Moments to go, then he would open his warren, force a rent, plunge through — through, and away.

  Weapons in his hands now. If I go down, it will be fighting – god or no god—

  Into the alley, embraced by darkness — behind him more screams, coming closer — Pearl reached in his mind like a drowning man for his warren. Mockra. Use it. Twist reality, cut into another warren — Rashan, and then the Imperial, and then—

  Nothing answered his quest. A ragged gasp burst from Pearl's throat as he sprinted onward, up the alley—

  Something behind him — right behind—

  Strokes of agony, slicing through both Achilles tendons — Pearl shrieked as the severed ligaments rolled up beneath the skin, stumbled on feet that felt like clods of mud, shifting hopelessly beneath him. Sprawling, refusing to release his weapons, still grasping out for his warren—

  Blade-edges licking like tongues of acid. Hamstrings, elbows — then he was lifted from the blackened cobbles by a single hand, and thrown into a wall. The impact shattered half his face, and as he fell backward, that hand returned, fingers digging in, forcing his head back. Cold iron slashed into his mouth, slicing, severing his tongue. Choking on blood, Pearl twisted his head around — he was grasped again, thrown into the opposite wall, breaking his left arm. Landing on his side — a foot hammered down on the point of his hip, the bone cradle collapsing into a splintered mess beneath it — gods, the pain, sweeping up through his mind, overwhelming him — his warren — where?

  All motion ceased.

  His attacker was standing over him. Crouching down. Pearl could see nothing — blood filled his eyes — a savage ringing filled his head, nausea rising up his throat, spilling out in racking heaves, streaked with gore from the gouting stub of his tongue. Lostara, my love, come close to the gate —and you will see me. Walking.

  A voice, soft and low, cut through it all, brutally clear, brutally close. 'My final target. You, Pearl. I had planned to make it quick.' A long pause, in which he heard slow, even breathing. 'But for Kalam Mekhar.'

  Something stabbed into his stomach, was pushed deep. 'I give you back the quarrel that killed him, Pearl.' And the figure straightened once more, walked a few paces away, then returned, even as the first horrifying pulses of fire began to sear his veins, gathering behind his eyes — a poison that would keep him alive for as long as possible, feeding his heart with everything it needed, even as vessels throughout his body burst, again and again and again—

  'Kalam's long-knives, Pearl. You weren't thinking. You cannot open a warren with otataral in your hand. And so, he and I together, we have killed you. Fitting.'

  Fires! Gods! Fire!

  As Apsalar walked away. Continuing up the alley, away from the harbourfront. Away, from everything.

  ****

  A scrawny, shadowy apparition appeared before her near the far end, where the alley reached a side street just this side of a bridge leading across the river and into the Mouse. Apsalar halted before it.

  'Tell Cotillion, I have done as he asked.'

  Shadowthrone made a whispering sound, like sighing, and one almost formless hand emerged from the folds of his ghostly cloak, gripping the silver head of a cane, that tapped once on the cobbles. 'I watched, my dear. Your Shadow Dance. From the foot of Rampart Way and onward, I was witness.'

  She said nothing.

  Shadowthrone resumed. 'Not even Cotillion. Not even Cotillion.'

  Still, Apsalar did not speak.

  The god suddenly giggled. 'Too many bad judgements, the poor woman. As we feared.' A pause, then another giggle. 'Tonight, the Clawmaster, and three hund
red and seven Claws — all by your hands, dear lass. I still... dis­believe. No matter. She's on her own, now. Too bad for her.' The barely substantial hooded head cocked slightly. 'Ah. Yes, Apsalar. We keep our promises. You are free. Go.'

  She held out the two long-knives, handles first.

  A bow, and the god accepted Kalam Mekhar's weapons.

  Then Apsalar moved past Shadowthrone, and walked on.

  He watched her cross the bridge.

  Another sigh. A sudden lifting of the cowled head, sniff­ing the air. 'Oh, happy news. But for me, not yet. First, a modest detour, yes. My, what a night!'

  The god began to fade, then wavered, then re-formed.

  Shadowthrone looked down at the long-knives in his right hand. 'Absurd! I must walk. And, perforce, quickly!' He scurried off, cane rapping on the stones.

  ****

  A short time later, Shadowthrone reached the base of a tower that was not nearly as ruined as it looked. Lifted the cane and tapped on the door. Waited for a dozen heart­beats, then repeated the effort.

  The door was yanked open.

  Dark eyes stared down at him, and in them was a grow­ing fury.

  'Now now, Obo,' Shadowthrone said. 'This is a courtesy, I assure you. Two most meddling twins have com­mandeered the top of your tower. I humbly suggest you oust them, in your usual kindly manner.' The god then sketched a salute with his cane, turned about and departed.

  The door slammed shut after two strides.

  And now, Shadowthrone began to quicken his pace once more. For one last rendezvous this night, a most precious one. The cane rapped swift as a soldier's drum.

  Halfway to his destination, the top of Obo's tower erupted in a thunderous fireball that sent pieces of brick and tile flying. Amidst that eruption there came two outraged screams.

  Recovering from his instinctive duck, Shadowthrone murmured. 'Most kindly, Obo. Most kindly indeed.'

  And the god walked the streets of Malaz City. Once more with uncharacteristic haste.

  ****

  They moved quickly along the street, keeping to the shadows, ten paces behind Legana Breed, who walked down the centre, sword tip clattering along the cobbles. The few figures who had crossed their path had hurriedly fled upon sighting the tattered apparition of the T'lan Imass.