Deadhouse Landing, page 39
He motioned to Cartheron. ‘I’m going to help Dassem. You join Urko.’
Cartheron raised a hand. ‘I’ll check on Surly first.’ He ordered everyone else to head for Urko.
Dancer started up the cobbled way that traced the channel. Cartheron struck off along an alleyway. Choss, who was wounded, was helped by Jack as the rest of the crew made their way to Urko’s bridge.
Jogging along through the blustering, lashing winds, Dancer decided that he had to believe that Kellanved couldn’t just have been blown up like that. After all the tricks he’d pulled? It must have been another of his diversions … mustn’t it?
He slowed to a walk. Someone had stepped out on to the empty street in front of him. A slim fellow all in dark clothes. Pale, with short black hair, his hands loose at his sides and a mocking arrogant grin on his lips, the meaning of which Dancer knew all too well.
He felt his shoulders fall as he looked up at the night sky. Oh, for the love of Burn … I do not have time for this. He waved the fellow off. ‘Not now. I’m damned busy.’
The lad laughed, high and sneering. ‘Not now,’ he teased. ‘Pathetic. You sound like a mark begging for his life. I expected better.’
Dancer pointed past him. ‘Look. There’s a man up there about to attempt the greatest feat of arms I’ve ever heard of, and he could use my help.’
The lad reached behind his back, and when he brought his hands out each held a very long and very slim blade. ‘Do I look like I give a shit?’
Dancer drew his own blades from his chest baldrics. ‘I don’t give a shit about this.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the Dancer I’m after.’
‘I guess I went and grew up.’
That pulled down the youth’s thin lips. He struck a ready stance, blades straight forward. ‘Just so you know – it’s Cowl who is about to kill you.’
Dancer eased back into a bent knee stance. ‘Spare me. I’ve heard it all before.’
The youth, Cowl, charged.
* * *
‘What’s he doin’ just standin’ there?’ one of her boys complained.
Lee rolled her eyes. ‘How in the Abyss should I know?’
‘Let’s rush ’im,’ another suggested.
She and ten of her remaining toughs were crouched in the mouth of an alleyway eyeing Stonemason Bridge, where a solitary swordsman stood watch. ‘Sure,’ Lee hissed, ‘your knife against his sword!’
‘Well, how’re we gonna get past?’
‘I don’t know!’ she growled once more.
‘Just shoot ’im,’ another urged.
Lee hefted her crossbow. ‘In this wind? Forget it. Have to get much closer.’
‘Fine. Let’s do it.’
‘Wait!’ another whispered. ‘Someone’s comin’.’
Marching feet approached up the channel road and a column of Napans emerged from the gloom. Grit and dirt blew about in lashing wind-devils as they closed on the bridge. Lee and her fellows eased further back into the alley.
At the base of the bridge, the swordsman drew his blade and threw the sheath out over the river. Lee watched it flash as it arced away. Something in that gesture made her lower her crossbow and gesture for her lads and lasses to stand down.
The dark fellow, a Dal Hon so she’d been told, struck a ready stance blocking the narrow stone bridge. The column of Napans paused briefly, as if dumbfounded, then an officer barked an order, and swords were drawn.
‘He’s not really goin’ to…’ one her lasses began before trailing off, almost in awe.
Lee found herself straightening for a better view. ‘It damn well looks like it.’
The Napan soldiers, heavy infantry all, came on two at a time. They carried swords and shields. The Dal Hon held his blade two-handed.
They met with a crash of blade against shield and blade. The Malazan toughs swore as the first ranks of the Napans seemed to melt one blurred stroke at a time. They fell, limp, to the mortared stones or tumbled over the low guarding lip to splash on to the muddy shore below.
Their officer called another order and the next ranks came on crouched behind shields, obviously meaning to push the fellow back. The Dal Hon did give way, but only one pace as he somehow slashed round or above or behind to bring each shieldbearer down in a dance that Lee simply could not believe.
‘What in the Abyss…’ one of her lads breathed, hushed.
The remaining column lost patience with hiding behind their shields and now charged as if meaning to trample the swordsman. This massed rush did buy them another two paces of the bridge, but some eight fell to achieve that length. Still the rest pressed on, as if simple brutal repetition would somehow win them through.
Lee actually winced when two blurred strokes felled the last two of the column. Now the swordsman faced the officer across a length of stone bridge carpeted by the armoured corpses of his command.
The officer stood motionless for a time as he scanned the wreckage of his men and women, and then his head rose to study the agent of this destruction. He reached up and unbuttoned his helm and threw it aside, drew his sword, and carefully, gingerly, stepped between the fallen to close with the Dal Hon.
The swordsman awaited him, blade out before him, not even the slightest movement of his chest beneath a simple blood-spattered jerkin betraying any shortage of breath.
And Lee could not breathe either. All she could think was how this could not be and how never, ever, would she have believed such a thing.
The two met perhaps a quarter of the way up the arch of the bridge. They touched blades and immediately the officer drew his back, slashing. The swordsman slid the blow and countered, and the officer’s head sailed through the air to fall with a splash into the Malaz river channel.
The swordsman cleaned his blade on the officer’s surcoat, sheathed it, and resumed his patient watch.
‘Hood’s mercy,’ another of her lads murmured.
‘I believe so,’ Lee said. ‘Let’s—’
Further marching boots rang in the night and a second column of Napan heavy infantry emerged through the wind-tossed dust and leaf litter.
Lee almost groaned in empathetic pain. Gods, no …
* * *
Dassem felt his shoulders fall ever so slightly as the second column of Napan soldiers came marching up the way. He did not know what he expected to come of pursuing his purpose here, but he hadn’t anticipated sadness. It was all such a waste. A damned useless waste of life and potential.
Downstream, just visible, pulsed the glow of a fire where one of the other bridges burned. Whether it was stone or wood did not matter; just so long as they kept the fire going long enough to funnel all the Napans to him.
And these appeared to be the last, for tonight. At orders from their female officer they formed up, facing him just back from the base of the bridge. Then the officer came forward, sword sheathed, and picked her way through her fallen fellows to study him.
For a Napan, sharing their blue coloration, she appeared rather sickly pale, even ashen now. ‘You did this?’ she breathed in disbelief.
He pointed back the way they’d come. ‘Turn round. Leave. No more need fall.’
She was shaking her head, studying the bodies. ‘We too have our duty.’
He regarded the woman with new understanding. ‘I see. Your name?’
‘Clementh.’
‘Dassem.’
‘We must try…’
‘Yes,’ he said, when her words tailed off. ‘I understand.’
She retreated to her command, and spoke to them for a time. Then, drawing, she came on, leading the attack. And Dassem winced inside: She would make this as hard as she could, wouldn’t she?
They met, and he slashed her among the first. Her soldiers dragged her back while the front rank raised shields. Then they came on again, two by two. The narrow stone span forced them together, inhibiting them. Dassem retreated one pace to clear space for himself and met them two-handed, clashing swords aside and thrusting at legs, arms, and exposed necks. He found he had to retreat yet another step as the fallen piled over one another on the narrow bridge.
More fell and Dassem had to force back his regret for what he had to do. It was pitiful that these good men and women should have to lay themselves down. He longed, then, for the old days of champions.
A shout pulled them back a step, shields raised, watching him warily from beneath the lips of their inlaid iron and bronze helmets. Clementh pushed her way forward, a bloodied arm hanging limp.
Even more ashen now from loss of blood, she eyed him, panting with the effort of holding herself erect. Dassem remained at the ready, blood-splashed and aching, but ready. She turned to her command, ordered, ‘Withdraw.’
They began backing away, stepping carefully over the fallen. A few stooped to pick up or drag wounded. Clementh struggled to sheathe her sword. ‘Tarel will have my head for this,’ she said.
‘But your men and women will live,’ Dassem finished for her.
She nodded, taking a deep breath. ‘We will see to the fallen.’
He nodded as well. ‘I will not interfere.’
‘I thank you for that.’
Now he shook his head. ‘No. I thank you. I did not enjoy this.’
She eyed him for a time, her gaze weighing. ‘Good.’
* * *
Cartheron slammed open the door to Smiley’s to find the common room empty. ‘Lady Sureth!’ he called, panicked for some reason.
‘Yes?’ she called, pushing open the kitchen door.
He swallowed his sudden dread. Ah. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Upstairs.’
Shrift appeared on the stairs, peering down into the room, looking very surprised. ‘Crust…’ she said, almost stammering. ‘What’re … what’re you doing here?’
‘Where’s Grinner?’
She gestured upstairs. ‘With Hawl. She’s sick or something. We’re worried about her.’
He started up. ‘I’ll take a look.’
Shrift allowed him to pass with a help yourself gesture. She followed him up.
He opened the door to her room and stood frozen for a heartbeat, unable to comprehend what confronted him. Hawl lay on the bed, her chest a wet mess of blood; on the floor just at his feet lay Grinner, face down, stabbed in the back.
As he drew breath to shout a hand closed over his mouth from behind and searing pain lanced his back as a length of razor iron was pushed through his torso. He fell, stunned in agony. Only distantly did he register a boot on his back and the blade’s being yanked free.
A woman’s voice, Shrift, breathed close into his ear: ‘Should’ve paid better, Crust.’ Then footsteps thumped away down the stairs.
Distantly, from below, he heard Sureth ask, ‘How is she?’
Some mumbled answer sounded, then a table crashed and feet stamped. Someone was cursing and he realized it was him. Low, he told himself, she struck low.
He started dragging his body towards the stairs.
* * *
They each fought with two knives. Their favourites, of course; preferred weight and lengths. Dancer lost count of the thin slashes he received on arms, sides and thighs as they ran, fought, twisted, jumped, swept and rolled. Conscious thought and planning were gone; all that remained was pure instinct and muscle reflex as attacks and blocks, feints and reverses flew past one another too fast for the mind to separate or even register.
His shirt hung in tatters, slashed from his arms, chest and back. The lad’s own face, neck and chest were a smear of blood, and when they grappled, tiring now, their arms slipped and slid on the sweat and blood sheathing them as they each fought for advantage.
Even so, the lad Cowl’s wide eyes blazed with a seemingly insane fury just a hand’s breadth from Dancer’s own, utterly untouched by the normal fear of mortality, and from this Dancer knew he was locked in potentially the most perilous duel of his life.
For no one was more dangerous than those who did not care if they lived or died.
So they fought on, crashing through doors, slamming into tables, slashing, neither quite able to land a stopping, definitive blow. A kick from Cowl sent him flying backwards into the road and the lad launched himself upon him and Dancer caught blade for blade. The lad head-butted him and though he’d turned his head aside stars still flashed in his vision and agony flamed from his thigh – he staggered off, clutching his leg.
Cowl followed, but slowly now, shifting his grips on his knives, rubbing a bloody forearm across his face but leaving even more of a smeared layer. His hair was a slick sweaty mess and he panted, favouring his own right leg as he tracked Dancer’s movements.
Dancer limped to half fall against the stone lip of a river channel. He shook drops of sweat from his vision, or perhaps they were tears of pain. He managed to straighten, held out his weapons, ready.
The lad was nodding now as he came. He pointed one blood-smeared knife. ‘You were good,’ he panted. ‘But now it ends as it always does.’
He edged up closer and closer, knives weaving in a dance of diversion and deceit, reversing, twisting, low and high, never stopping.
Dancer waited until just the right distance, then rushed him.
They grappled, arms twisting and sliding, neither releasing his blades. Their hot wet breath mixed as they turned round and round each other, grunting and hissing, legs kicking, searching for a hold.
Dancer realized his strength was leaving him in a steady stream out of the thrust through his leg. He had no more time.
He dipped his shoulder, which allowed Cowl to bring his knife up towards his chest. Immediately, the assassin abandoned his other weapon to clamp both hands to the slick grip to push. Dancer dropped his blades to wrap both hands round Cowl’s and they stood rigid, straining, their breaths rasping from taut chests.
‘It’s all right,’ Cowl whispered bare inches from his face, his eyes so eerie and wild. ‘You did your best.’ And he crooned as if to a child: ‘No more worries now … hush now … It’ll all be over soon…’
Dancer knew it had to be now. That this was in fact his last chance. He allowed a fraction of the true exhaustion that hung upon him to show, and the keen tip of Cowl’s blade edged closer to his chest. The assassin leaned even more of his weight on the knife, straining.
Dancer threw both of them backwards over the stone lip.
In that instant of surprise he twisted the blade up towards Cowl’s neck.
They hit the swampy mud and reeds and immediately sank. He lost track of the man as he flailed, coughing on a lungful of fetid slimy water. He drew two more blades, spinning, turning, searching, but no fiend came lunging from the weeds.
He lay still, worked on slowing his breath, and listened to the night.
The punishing winds lashed the tall weeds and rushes. Another brilliant burst flashed across the city and the report of the explosion rumbled and echoed over the rooftops. Slowly, so very weary, he pushed his way through the muck for the sloped stone wall of the channel.
Chapter 18
Tayschrenn sat with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped round them. He rocked, eyes closed, thinking, Get up! Move! But he could not. He was so tired. Just resting on land was privilege enough. The barrage was a constant background now; blasting attacks potent enough to have sprayed the consciousness of any other practitioner across the hillsides. Still they pursued; still they sought him.
Just go away!
But they would not, of course. They smelled blood now, so to speak. A day ago he simply ignored all their combined efforts as a nuisance to his flight. But not now. Now it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain his defences. Eventually, they would crack beneath the relentless punishment.
He’d been so certain he could escape them! Yet, somehow, they had pursued him into the deepest lineaments of D’riss and found him there; somehow they had even tracked his essence into far hinterlands of the Warren of Thyr. He had even thrown what little bits and pieces of Mockra he’d picked up as false trails and delusions; yet they had seen through these and pushed on upon his trail. Only through the sheer might of his command did he now stave them off.
The priests of D’rek were utterly remorseless.
If he could just hold on – outlast them. Then, perhaps, he had a chance.
He blinked then, where he crouched in an alley of shingle-stone buildings in some cold city, and suddenly found himself somewhere else.
It was light now, a sort of dusk, and the ground was soft beneath him. He eased the clench of his arms and raised his head, cracking open his eyes. His essence, his kha, had been transported somewhere new.
A plain of ashen dust surrounded him; rounded hills rose in the distance. The sky was clear – oddly so. Stars ought to be visible in this seeming evening dusk.
A man stood in front of him, short, in fine dark clothes that appeared to have seen better days. He rocked back and forth on the heels of new shoes, a short walking stick planted before him. He was Dal Hon, and projected the appearance of a wizened oldster, but Tayschrenn could see through this affectation to the features of a young skinny lad.
He frowned, sensing around himself. ‘Meanas?’ he offered.
The Dal Hon lad waggled his head in an ‘almost’ gesture. ‘Close.’
‘My body remains. This buys me no time.’
The lad tilted his head again, as if weighing the matter. ‘Eventually. In the meantime … let’s have a chat.’
Tayschrenn rose, stretching. He studied the fellow more closely, and the more he examined him, the more confused he became. The skein of his Warren manipulation was different from any he’d encountered before. Somehow … altered. It was as if the fellow was annealed with a multiplicity of commingled influences and sources of power. There was even a tinge of the Elder about him. It was clear to Tayschrenn that he had endured some sort of transformational experience.
‘I know of all the High Sorcerers of our age,’ he said, walking a circuit of the strange fellow. ‘I have made it my research. The Ascendants, the Enchantress, the Tiste, and the Jaghut. But you … I do not know you.’
The little fellow looked very pleased. ‘Good. Now, time is short…’
