The T'lan Imass had lifted his head, steps slowing until he came to a halt. The others followed suit. Lady Envy turned to Tool.
'What sorcery is this, T'lan Imass?'
'You know as well as I, Lady,' Tool rasped in reply, still scenting the air. 'Unexpected, a deepening of the confusion surrounding the entity known as the Pannion Seer.'
'An unimaginable alliance, yet it would appear…'
'It would appear,' Tool agreed.
Baaljagg's eyes returned to the north, gauging the preternatural glow building on the jagged horizon, a glow that began flowing down between the mountains, filling the valleys, spreading outward. The wind rose to a howl, gelid and bitter.
Memories resurrected… this is Jaghut sorcery—
'Can you defeat it, Tool?' Lady Envy asked.
The T'lan Imass turned to her. 'I am clanless. Weakened. Lady, unless you can negate it, we shall have to cross as best we can, and it will build all the while, striving to deny us.'
The Lady's expression was troubled. Her frown deepened as she studied the emanation to the north. 'K'Chain Che'Malle… and Jaghut together. Is there precedence for such an alliance?'
'There is not,' Tool said.
Sleet swept down on the small group, swiftly turning into hail. Toc felt the stinging impacts through Baaljagg's hide as the animal hunched lower. A moment later they began moving once more, leaning against the blistering wind.
Before them, the mountains thickened with a mantle of green-veined white…
Toc blinked. He was in the tower, crouched before the meat-laden table. The Seer's back was to him, suffused with Jaghut sorcery—the creature within the old man's carcass was now entirely visible, thin, tall, hairless, tinted green. But no, there's more—grey roots roped down from the body's legs, chaotic power, plunging down through the stone floor, twisting with something like pain or ecstacy. The Jaghut draws on another sorcery, something older, far more deadly than Omtose Phellack.
The Seer turned. 'I am… disappointed, Toc the Younger. Did you think you could reach out to your wolf kin without my knowing it? So, the one within you readies for its rebirth.'
The one within me?
'Alas,' the Seer went on, 'the Beast Throne is vacant—neither you nor that beast god can match my strength. Even so, had I remained ignorant, you might well have succeeded in assassinating me. You lied!'
This last accusation came as a shriek, and Toc saw, not an old man, but a child standing before him.
'Liar! Liar! And for that you shall suffer!' The Seer gestured wildly.
Pain clenched Toc the Younger, wrapped iron bands around his body, his limbs, lifted him into the air. Bones snapped. The Malazan screamed.
'Break! Yes, break into pieces! But I won't kill you, no, not yet, not for a long, long time! Oh, look at you writhe, but what do you know of true pain, mortal? Nothing. I will show you, Toc the Younger. I will teach you—' He gestured again.
Toc found himself hovering in absolute darkness. The agony clutching him did not cease, yet drew no tighter. His gasps echoed dully in heavy, stale air. He—he sent me away. My god sent me away… and now I'm truly alone. Alone…
Something moved nearby, something huge, hard skin rasping against stone. A mewling sound reached Toc's ears, growing louder, closer.
With a shriek, leathery arms wrapped around the Malazan, pulled him into a suffocating, desperate embrace. Pinned against a flabby, pebble-skinned bosom, Toc found himself in the company of a score or more corpses, in various stages of decomposition—all within the yearning hug of giant, reptilian arms.
Broken ribs ground and tore in Toc's chest. His skin was slippery with blood, yet whatever healing sorcery the Seer had gifted to him persisted, slowly mending, knitting, only to have the bones break yet again within the savage embrace of the creature who now held him.
The Seer's voice filled his skull. I tired of the others… but you I shall keep alive. You are worthy to take my place in that sweet, motherly hug. Oh, she is mad. Mindless with insanity, yet the sparks of need reside within her. Such need. Beware, or it will devour you, as it did me—until I grew so foul that she spat me back out. Need, when it overwhelms, becomes poison, Toc the Younger. The great corrupter of love, and so it shall corrupt you. Your flesh. Your mind. Can you feel it? It has begun. Dear Malazan, can you feel it?
He had no breath with which to scream, yet the arms holding him felt his shudder, and squeezed tighter.
Soft whimpers filled the chamber, the twin voices of Toc and his captor.
Chapter Thirteen
Onearm's Host, in that time, was perhaps the finest army the Malazan Empire had yet to produce, even given the decimation of the Bridgeburners at the Siege of Pale. Drawn from disparate regiments that included companies from Seven Cities, Falar, and Malaz Island, these ten thousand soldiers were, by roll, four thousand nine hundred and twelve women, the remaining men; one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven under the recorded age of twenty-five years, seven hundred and twenty-one over the age of thirty-five years; the remaining in between.
Remarkable indeed. More so when one considers this: among its soldiers could be found veterans of the Wickan Wars (see Coltaine's Rebellion), the Aren Uprising (on both sides), and Blackdog Forest and Mott Wood.
How does one measure such an army? By their deeds; and that which awaited them in the Pannion Domin would make of Onearm's Host a legend carved in stone.
East of Saltoan, a History of the Pannion Wars Gouridd Palah
MIDGES SWARMED THE TALL-GRASS PRAIRIE, THE GRAINY BLACK clouds tumbling over the faded, wavering green. Oxen bellowed and moaned in their yokes, their eyes covered with clusters of the frenzied insects. The Mhybe watched her Rhivi kin move among the beasts, their hands laden with grease mixed with the crushed seeds of lemon grass, which they smeared around the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The unguent had served the bhederin well for as long as the huge bison had been under the care of the Rhivi; a slighter thinner version was used by the Rhivi themselves. Most of Brood's soldiers had taken to the pungent yet effective defence as well, whilst the Tiste Andü had proved evidently unpalatable to the biting insects. What had drawn the midges this time was the rank upon rank of unprotected Malazan soldiers.
Yet another march across this Hood-forsaken continent for that weary army of foreigners, these strangers who had been, for so many years, unwelcome, detested, feared. Our new allies, their surcoats dyed grey, their colourless standards proclaiming an unknown loyalty. They follow one man, and ask nothing of justification, or cause.
She drew the rough weave of her hood over her head as the slanting sun broke through the clouds gathered to the southwest. Her back was to the march; she sat in the bed of a Rhivi wagon, eyes on the trailing baggage train and the companies of Malazan soldiers flanking it.
Does Brood command such loyalty? He was the warlord who delivered the first defeat to the Malazan army. Our lands were being invaded. Our cause was clear, and we fought for the commander who could match the enemy. And even now, we face a new threat to our homeland, and Brood has chosen to lead us. Still, should he command us into the Abyss—would we follow? And now, knowing what I know, would I?
Her thoughts travelled from the warlord to Anomander Rake and the Tiste Andü. All strangers to Genabackis, yet they fought in its defence, in the name of its people's liberty. Rake's rule over his Tiste Andü was absolute. Aye, they would stride unblinking into the Abyss. The fools.
And now, marching at their sides, the Malazans. Dujek Onearm. Whiskeyjack. And ten thousand unwavering souls. What made such men and women so intractable in their sense of honour?
She had come to fear their courage. Within the husk of her body, there was a broken spirit. Dishonoured by its own cowardice, bereft of dignity, a mother no longer. Lost, even, to the Rhivi. I am no more than food to the child. I have seen her, from a distance now and no closer—she is taller, she has filled out, her hips, her breasts, her face. This Tattersail was no gazelle. She devours me, this ne
w woman, with her sleepy eyes, her full, broad mouth, her swaying, sultry walk—
A horseman rode to the wagon's rear, his armour clanking, his dusty cloak flapping as he slowed his charger. The visor on his burnished helm was raised, revealing a grey-shot beard, trimmed close, beneath hard eyes.
'Will you send me away as well, Mhybe?' he growled, his horse slowing to a walk to keep pace.
'Mhybe? That woman is dead,' she replied. 'You may leave here, Whiskeyjack.'
She watched him pull the tanned leather gloves from his wide, scarred hands, studied those hands as they finally came to a rest on the saddlehorn. There is a mason's brutality about them, yet they are endearing none the less. Any woman still alive would desire their touch…
'An end to the foolishness, Mhybe. We've need of your counsel. Korlat tells me you are racked with dreams. You cry out against a threat that approaches us, something vast and deadly. Woman, your terror is palpable—even now, I see that my words have rekindled it in your eyes. Describe your visions, Mhybe.'
Struggling against a painfully hammering heart, she barked a rough, broken laugh. 'You are all fools. Would you seek to challenge my enemy? My deadly, unopposable foe? Will you draw that sword of yours and stand in my stead?'
Whiskeyjack scowled. 'If that would help.'
'There is no need. What comes for me in my dreams comes for us all. Oh, perhaps we soften its terrible visage, the darkness of a cowl, a vague human shape, even a skull's grin which only momentarily shocks yet remains, none the less, deeply familiar—almost comforting. And we build temples to blunt the passage into its eternal domain. We fashion gates, raise barrows—'
'Your enemy is death?' Whiskeyjack glanced away, then met her eyes again. 'This is nonsense, Mhybe. You and I are both too old to fear death.'
'Face to face with Hood!' she snapped. 'That is how you see it—you fool! He is the mask behind which hides something beyond your ability to comprehend. I have seen it! I know what awaits me!'
'Then you no longer yearn for it—'
'I was mistaken, back then. I believed in my tribe's spiritworld. I have sensed the ghosts of my ancestors. But they are but memories made manifest, a sense of self desperately holding itself together by strength of its own will and naught else. Fail in that will, and all is lost. For ever.'
'Is oblivion so terrible, Mhybe?'
She leaned forward, gripping the wagon's sides with fingers that clawed, nails that dug into the weathered wood. 'What lies beyond is not oblivion, you ignorant man! No, imagine a place crowded with fragmented memories—memories of pain, of despair—all those emotions that carve deepest upon our souls.' She fell back, weakened, and slowly sighed, her eyes closing. 'Love drifts like ashes, Whiskeyjack. Even identity is gone. Instead, all that is left of you is doomed to an eternity of pain and terror—a succession of fragments from everyone—every thing—that has ever lived. In my dreams… I stand upon the brink. There is no strength in me—my will has already shown itself weak, wanting. When I die… I see what awaits me, I see what hungers for me, for my memories, for my pain.' She opened her eyes, met his gaze. 'It is the true Abyss, Whiskeyjack. Beyond all the legends and stories, it is the true Abyss. And it lives unto itself, consumed by rapacious hunger.'
'Dreams can be naught but an imagination's fashioning of its own fears, Mhybe,' the Malazan said. 'You are projecting a just punishment for what you perceive as your life's failure.'
Her eyes narrowed on him. 'Get out of my sight,' she growled, turning away, drawing her hood tighter about her head, cutting off the outside world—all that lay beyond the warped, stained planks of the wagon's bed. Begone, Whiskeyjack, with your sword-thrust words, the cold, impervious armour of your ignorance. You cannot answer all that I have seen with a simple, brutal statement. I am not a stone for your rough hands. The knots within me defy your chisel.
Your sword-thrust words shall not cut to my heart.
I dare not accept your wisdom. I dare—
Whiskeyjack. You bastard.
The commander rode at a gentle canter through the dust until he reached the vanguard of the Malazan army. Here, he found Dujek, flanked by Korlat on one side and the Daru, Kruppe, on the other, the latter tottering uneasily on a mule, hands waving about at the swarming midges.
'A plague on these pernicious gnats! Kruppe despairs!'
'The wind will pick up soon enough,' Dujek growled. 'We're approaching hills.'
Korlat drew closer alongside Whiskeyjack. 'How does she fare, Commander?'
He grimaced. 'No better. Her spirit is as twisted and shrunken as her body. She has fashioned a vision of death that has her fleeing it in terror.'
'Tat—Silverfox feels abandoned by her mother. This leads to bitterness. She no longer welcomes our company.'
'Her too? This is turning into a contest of wills, I think. Isolation is the last thing she needs, Korlat.'
'In that she is like her mother, as you have just intimated.'
He let out a long sigh, shifted in his saddle. His thoughts began to drift; he was weary, his leg aching and stiff. Sleep had been eluding him.
They had heard virtually nothing of the fate of Paran and the Bridgeburners. The warrens had become impassable. Nor were they certain if the siege of Capustan was under way, or of the city's fate. Whiskeyjack had begun to regret sending the Black Moranth away. Dujek and Brood's armies were marching into the unknown; even the Great Raven Crone and her kin had not been seen for over a week. It's these damned warrens and the sickness now filling them… 'They're late,' Dujek muttered.
'And no more than that, Kruppe assures one and all. Recall the last delivery. Almost dusk, it was. Three horses left on the lead wagon, the others killed and cut from the traces. Four shareholders gone, their souls and earnings scattered to the infernal winds. And the merchant herself! Near death, she was. The warning was clear, my friends—the warrens have been compromised. And as we march ever closer to the Domin, the foulment grows ever more… uh, foul.'
'Yet you insist they'll make it through again.'
'Kruppe does, High Fist! The Trygalle Trade Guild honours its contracts. They are not to be underestimated. 'Tis the day of their delivery of supplies. Said supplies shall therefore be delivered. And, assuming Kruppe's request has been honoured, among those supplies will be crates of the finest insect repellent ever created by the formidable alchemists of Darujhistan!'
Whiskeyjack leaned towards Korlat. 'Where in the line does she walk?' he asked quietly.
'At the very rear, Commander—'
'And is anyone watching her?'
The Tiste Andü woman glanced over and frowned. 'Is there need?'
'How in Hood's name should I know?' he snapped. A moment later he scowled. 'Your pardon, Korlat. I shall seek her out myself.' He swung his mount around, nudged it into a canter.
'Tempers grow short,' Kruppe murmured as the commander rode away. 'But not as short as Kruppe, for whom all nasty words whiz impactless over his head, and are thus lost in the ether. And those darts aimed lower, ah, they but bounce from Kruppe's ample equanimity—'
'Fat, you mean,' Dujek said, wiping dust from his brow then leaning over to spit onto the ground.
'Ahem, Kruppe, equably cushioned, blithely smiles at the High Fist's jibe. It is the forthright bluntness of soldiers that one must bathe in whilst on the march leagues from civilization. Antidote to the snipes of gutter rats, a refreshing balm to droll, sardonic nobles—why prick with a needle when one can use a hammer, eh? Kruppe breathes deep—but not so deep as to cough from the dust-laden stench of nature—such simple converse. The intellect must needs shift with alacrity from the intricate and delicate steps of the court dance to the tribal thumping of boots in grunting cadence—'
'Hood take us,' Korlat muttered to the High Fist, 'you got under his skin after all.'
Dujek's answering grin was an expression of perfect satisfaction.
Whiskeyjack angled his horse well to one side of the columns, then drew rein to await the rearguar
d. There were Rhivi everywhere in sight, moving singly or in small groups, their long spears balanced on their shoulders. Brown-skinned beneath the sun, they strode with light steps, seemingly immune to the heat and the leagues passing under their feet. The bhederin herd was being driven parallel to the armies, a third of a league to the north. The intervening gap revealed a steady stream of Rhivi, returning from the herd or setting off towards it. The occasional wagon joined the to-and-fro, unladen on its way north, burdened with carcasses on the way back.
The rearguard came within sight, flanked by outriders, the Malazan companies in sufficient strength to blunt a surprise attack long enough for the main force to swing round and come to their relief. The commander lifted the water-bladder from his saddle and filled his mouth, eyes narrowed as he studied the disposition of his soldiers.
Satisfied, he urged his mount into a walk, squinting into the trailing clouds of dust at the rearguard's tail-end.
She walked in that cloud as if seeking obscurity, her stride so like Tattersail's that Whiskeyjack felt a shiver dance up his spine. Twenty paces behind her marched a pair of Malazan soldiers, crossbows slung over their shoulders, helms on and visors lowered.
The commander waited until the trio had passed, then guided his horse into their wake. Within moments he was alongside the two marines.
The soldiers glanced up. Neither saluted, following standard procedure for battlefields. The woman closest to Whiskeyjack offered a curt nod. 'Commander. Here to fill your quota of eating dust, are ya?'
'And how did you two earn the privilege?'
'We volunteered, sir,' the other woman said. 'That's Tattersail up there. Yeah, we know, she calls herself Silverfox now, but we ain't fooled. She's our Cadre Mage, all right.'
'So you've elected to guard her back.'
'Aye. Fair exchange, sir. Always.'
'And are the two of you enough?'
The first woman grinned beneath her half-visor. 'We're Hood damned killers, me and my sister, sir. Two quarrels every seventy heartbeats, both of us. And when time's run out for that, why, then, we switch to longswords, one for each hand. And when they're all busted, it's pig-stickers—'
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