The Malazan Empire, page 1014
The half-naked woman fought beside him with serpentine grace, her ridiculous obsidian knives whispering out like black tongues, returning wet with blood.
Confusion roared through Withal. This woman was a stranger – but that was impossible. Through the grille of his visor, he shouted, ‘Who in Hood’s name are you?’
Sharl sank back, knees folding, and suddenly she was lying on the ground. Figures crowded above her, twisted faces, thrusting spear shafts, feet fighting for purchase. She’d lost her sword, and blood was welling from somewhere below her rib cage. Her fumbling fingers probed, found a puncture that went in, and in.
‘Ah, I am slain.’
‘Can you breathe? Take a breath, woman! A deep breath, and that’s an order!’
‘C-captain?’
‘You heard me!’
Sharl couldn’t see her – somewhere behind her head – and her voice was barely recognizable, but who else would it be? Who else could it be? The ground trembled beneath her. Where was that trembling coming from? Like a thousand iron hearts. Beating. Beating. She drew fetid air into her lungs. Deeper, and deeper still. ‘Captain! I can breathe!’
‘Then you’ll live! Get up! I want you with me – till the end, y’understand?’
Sharl tried to sit up, sank back in gasping pain. ‘Been stabbed, Captain—’
‘That’s how y’get into this damned club! Stand up, damn you!’
She rolled on to her side – easier this way to draw up her legs, to make her way to her hands and knees.
Brevity was gasping out words. ‘Girl without a friend…Nothing worse! Know what happens when a girl’s got no friend?’
‘No, Captain.’
‘They get married!’
Sharl saw a sword nearby – a corpse was gripping it. She reached out and prised the weapon free. ‘All right, Captain,’ she said, ‘I’ll be your friend.’
‘Till the end?’
‘Till the end.’
‘Swear it!’
‘I swear! I swear!’
A hand reached under an armpit, lifted her up. ‘Steady now, love. Let’s go kill us some men.’
Zevgan Drouls had killed his debt-holder, and then the bastard’s whole family. Then he had burned down the estate and with it all the records of the hundreds of families swindled into indebtedness by a man who thought he had the right to do whatever he damn well pleased with as many lives as he could chain and shackle. Zevgan had gone on to burn down the bank, and then the Hall of Records – well, only half of it, to be sure, but the right half.
Not that anyone could prove a single thing, because he was no fool. Still, enough suspicions ended up crowding his feet, enough to get him sent to the prison islands. Where he’d spent the last twenty-one years of his life – until the exodus. Until the march. Until this damned shore.
Too old to fight in the ranks, he now knelt on the berm overlooking the First Shore, alongside a dozen or so others in the Children’s Guard. The lame, the ancient, the half blind and the half deaf. Behind them, huddled in the gloom of the forest edge, all the young ’uns and the pregnant women, and those too old or, of late, too badly wounded to do any more fighting – and there were lots of those.
Zevgan and his crew – and the ten or so other squads – waited to give their lives defending the children of the Shake and the Letherii islanders, the children and those others, but it was the children Zevgan kept thinking about.
Well, it wouldn’t be much of a defence, he knew – they all knew it, in fact – but that didn’t matter. Why should it? Those are children behind us, looking up to us with those scared eyes. What else counts?
Mixter Frill pushed up closer beside him, wiping at his nose. ‘So you’re confessing, are ya?’
‘Y’heard me,’ Zevgan replied. ‘I did it. All of it. And I’d do it again, too. In fact, if they hadn’t a stuck me on that island, I would never have stopped. I woulda burned down all the banks, all the Halls of Records, all the fat estates with their fat lenders and their fat wives and husbands and fat whatevers.’
‘You murdered innocents, Zev, is what you did. They shoulda hung you.’
‘Hung. Tortured, turned me inside out, roasted my balls and diced up my cock, aye, Mix. Errant knows, messing with how things are made up for the people in power – why, there’s no more heinous crime than that, and they’d be the first to tell you, too.’
‘Look at ’em dying out there, Zev.’
‘I’m looking, Mix.’
‘And we’re next.’
‘We’re next, aye. And that’s why I’m confessing. Y’see, it’s my last laugh. At ’em all, right? Ain’t strangled, ain’t inside out, ain’t ballroasted, ain’t dick-diced.’
Mix said something but with all the noise Zev couldn’t make it out. He twisted to ask but then he saw, on all sides, figures rushing past. And there were swords, and that raging forest behind them, with all that deafening noise that had been getting closer and closer, and now was here.
Mix was shouting, but Zev just stared.
Skin black as ink. Tall buggers, all manner of weapons out, hammering the rims of shields, and the look in their faces – as they threaded through the camp where all the children huddled and stared, where the pregnant women flinched and shied – the look on their faces – I know that look. I saw it in the mirror, I saw it in the mirror.
The night I took ’em all down.
The two black dragons would not last much longer – it was a wonder they still lived, still fought on. Leaving them to his kin, Kadagar Fant descended to fly low over the Shore. He could see the last of the hated enemy going down to the swords and spears of the elites – they were surrounded, those wretched murderers, stupidly protecting their leaders – the dead one and the woman kneeling at his side.
Soon he would land. He would semble. Kadagar wanted to be there when that woman was the only one left. He wanted to cut her head off with his own hands. Was she the queen? Of all Kharkanas? He believed she was. He had to acknowledge her bravery – to come down to the First Shore, to fight alongside her people.
But not all bravery was worthy of reward, or even acknowledgement, and the only reward he intended for this woman was a quick death. But a squalid one. Maybe I’ll just choke the life from her.
This realm was thick with smoke, distant forests alight, and Kadagar wondered if the enemy sought to deny him the throne by perniciously burning the city to the ground. He could easily imagine such perfidy from this sort. But I will rebuild. And I will loose the light upon this realm. Scour away the darkness, the infernal shadows. Something new will be born of this. An age of peace. Blessed peace!
He saw one of the black dragons spin past, pursued by two of his kin. That one, he knew, was moments from death.
Aparal, you should never have gone through first. You knew he would be waiting for you. But his brother, his most loyal servant and friend, was now sembled, a lone, motionless body lying at the foot of Lightfall. From this height, pathetically small, insignificant. And this was improper – he would raise a monument to Aparal’s sacrifice, to the glory of his slaying the wielder of the Hust sword. There, at the base of Lightfall itself, he would—
Black as midnight, a tide was flooding out from the forest edge below. Kadagar stared in horror as it rushed across the strand and slammed into his Liosan legions.
Tiste Andii!
He wheeled, crooked his wings, awakening the sorcery within him, and sped down towards his hated foes. I will kill them. I will kill them all!
Something spun past him in a welter of blood and gore – one of his kin – torn to shreds. Kadagar screamed, twisted his neck and glared upward.
To see a red dragon – a true Eleint, twice the size of his kin – close upon a brother Soletaken. Fire poured from it in a savage wave, struck the white dragon. The body exploded in a fireball, torn chunks of meat spinning away trailing smoke. And now, more black dragons sailed down from the sky.
He saw two descend on the kin that had been pursuing the lone dragon, saw them crash down on them in a deluge of fangs and claws.
The lone hunter below them banked then, and, wings thundering the air, rose towards Kadagar.
Against him, she would not last. Too wounded, too weakened – he would destroy her quickly, and then return to aid his kin. This cannot end this way! It must not!
Like a fist of stone, something hammered down on him. He shrieked in agony and rage as enormous talons tore ragged furrows deep across his back. Jaws snapped down, crushed one of his wings. Helpless, Kadagar plunged earthward.
He struck the strand in a shower of crushed white bone, skidding and then rolling, slamming up against the unyielding wall of Lightfall. The sand pelted down, filling his ragged wounds. Far overhead, the death cries of his kin. A thousand paces away, the battle at the breach. He was alone, hurt, broken.
Kadagar sembled. Dragged himself into a sitting position, setting his back to Lightfall, and watched the black dragon that had been rising to meet him now landing thirty paces away, shedding blood like rain.
High overhead, the red Eleint killed another of his Soletaken kin – taking hold of it like a small bird, ripping its limbs off, crushing its skull in its massive jaws.
Before him, she had sembled, and now she walked towards him.
Kadagar closed his eyes. My people. My people. The sound of her boots. He looked up. She had a knife in one hand.
‘My people,’ he said.
She showed him a red smile. ‘Your people.’
He stared up at her.
‘Give me your name, Liosan.’
‘I am Kadagar Fant, Lord of Light.’
‘Lord of Light.’
‘I call upon the ancient custom of Hostage.’
‘We have no need of hostages. Your army is destroyed, Lord.’
‘I will speak for the Liosan. There shall be peace.’
The woman nodded. ‘Yes, there shall be peace. Lord Kadagar Fant, on behalf of the Tiste Andii, welcome to Darkness.’ The knife flashed up towards his eye.
A sudden sting of pain and then…
Korlat stared down at the dead man, at her knife, pushed to the hilt in his right eye socket, and then she stepped back, turned away.
At the breach, her Tiste Andii kin were slaughtering the last of the Liosan. They had driven them back to the wound itself, and when the enemy retreated into the miasma she saw ranks of Andii follow. There would be an end to this. An end.
Overhead, Nimander and his kin were descending, along with Prazek. Dathenar had fallen earlier. Korlat had felt her death cry and its howl still echoed in her soul. Silanah remained high overhead, wheeling like a huntress. Not one of the Liosan Soletaken remained.
She looked down the strand, eyes narrowing at the motley remnants of the Shake – three, four hundred at the most – now hunched over, slumping, some falling, in a ragged circle surrounding a kneeling figure. Her gaze drifted momentarily from this company of survivors, travelled over the solid carpet of bodies spreading out on all sides. And, slowly, the magnitude of the slaughter, here upon the First Shore, found resolution.
Gods below.
She set out for those survivors. A woman dripping blood from too many wounds to count, and beneath her feet, in a steady drizzle, crimson rain.
Impossibly, the sound was gone, and the silence now surrounding them had thickened. Withal knelt, bent over, struggling to find his breath, but some blow had broken ribs, and he was afraid to move, afraid to inhale too deeply.
The half-naked woman settled down beside him, tortured him by leaning against him. ‘Now that was a fight, thief. And for you, maybe not over.’
He was having trouble with his eyes – the blood was drying, seeking to close them up. ‘Not over?’
‘If you don’t give that armour back, I will have to kill you.’
He reached up, dragged his helm free and let it tumble from his hands. ‘It’s yours. I never want to see it again.’
‘Ill words,’ she chided. ‘It saved your life a dozen times this day.’
She was right in that. Still. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Look up, man. It’s the least you can do.’
But that was too hard. ‘No. You did not see them here from the beginning. You did not see them die. How long have they been fighting? Weeks? Months? For ever?’
‘I can see the truth of that.’
‘They weren’t soldiers—’
‘I beg to differ.’
‘They weren’t soldiers!’
‘Look up, old man. In the name of the Fallen, look up.’
And so he did.
He and the Shake, the Letherii, the Queen Yan Tovis, Twilight – these few hundred – were surrounded once more. But this time those facing them were Tiste Andii, in their thousands.
And not one was standing.
Instead, they knelt, heads bowed.
Withal twisted round, made to rise. ‘I’m not the one needs to see this—’
But the woman beside him caught his arm, forcibly pulled him back down. ‘No,’ she said, like him looking across to Yan Tovis – who still knelt over the body of her brother, and who still held shut her eyes, as if she could hold back all the truths before her. ‘Not yet.’
He saw Sergeant Cellows sitting near the queen, the Hust sword balanced across his thighs. He too seemed unable to look up, to see anything beyond his inner grief.
And all the others, blind to all that surrounded them. Oh, will not one of you look up? Look up and see those who have witnessed all that you have done? See how they honour you…but no, they are past such things now. Past them.
A group of Tiste Andii approached from up the strand. Something familiar there – Withal’s eyes narrowed, and then he hissed a curse and climbed to his feet. Nimander. Skintick. Desra. Nenanda. But these were not the frail creatures he had once known – if they ever were what I thought they were. If it was all hidden away back then, it is hidden no more. But… Aranatha? Kedeviss?
‘Withal,’ said Nimander, his voice hoarse, almost broken.
‘You found your people,’ Withal said.
The head cocked. ‘And you yours.’
But that notion hurt him deep inside, and he would not consider it. Shaking his head, he said, ‘The Shake and the Letherii islanders, Nimander – see what they have done.’
‘They held the First Shore.’
And Withal now understood that hoarseness, all the broken edges of Nimander’s voice. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. For all that he had seen – that he must have seen, for surely he numbered among the black dragons – of this strand, this battle.
Nimander turned as another Tiste Andii staggered close. A woman, half her clothes torn away, her flesh flensed and gashed. ‘Korlat. She did what was needed. She…saw reason. Will you go to your mother now?’
‘I will not.’
Withal saw Nimander’s sudden frown. ‘She sits upon the throne of Kharkanas, Korlat. She must be made to know that her daughter has returned to her.’
Korlat’s eyes shifted slowly, fixed upon the kneeling form of Yan Tovis. ‘Her son was the only child that ever mattered to my mother, Nimander. And I failed to protect him. She set that one charge upon me. To protect her son.’
‘But you are her daughter!’
Korlat raised her voice, ‘Twlight, queen of the Shake! Look upon me.’
Slowly, Yan Tovis lifted her gaze.
Korlat spoke. ‘I have no place in the palace of my mother, the queen of Kharkanas. In ancient times, Highness, there stood at your side a Sister of Night. Will you take me – will you take Korlat, daughter of Sandalath Drukorlat?’
Yan Tovis frowned. Her gaze wandered from the Tiste Andii woman standing before her, wandered out to the kneeling Tiste Andii, and then, at last, to the huddle of her own people, her so few survivors. And then, as if borne by an impossible strength, she climbed to her feet. Brushed feebly at the sand clinging to her bloody clothes. Straightened. ‘Korlat, daughter of Sandalath Drukorlat, the Sister of Night in the House of the Shake is not for one of the pure blood—’
‘Forgive me, Queen, but my blood is not pure.’
Yan Tovis paused, and then continued, ‘The blood of the Eleint—’
‘Queen, my blood is not pure.’
Withal suddenly comprehended Korlat’s meaning. Cold dread curled in his chest. No, Korlat will have no place in the palace of Queen Sandalath Drukorlat. And how was it, after all that had happened, here on the First Shore, that his heart could still break?
One more time.
Oh… Sand.
Yan Tovis spoke. ‘Korlat, Daughter of Sandalath Drukorlat, I welcome you into the House of the Shake. Sister of Night, come to me.’
One more time.
‘What are you doing?’ Sharl asked. She was lying down on the ground again, with no memory of how she’d got there.
‘Pluggin’ the hole in your gut,’ Brevity said.
‘Am I going to die?’
‘Not a chance. You’re my new best friend, remember? Speaking of which, what’s your name?’
Sharl tried to lift herself up, but there was no strength left in her. She had never felt so weak. All she wanted to do was close her eyes. And sleep.
Someone was shaking her. ‘Don’t! Don’t you leave me alone!’
Her body felt chained down, and she wanted free of it. I never knew how to fight.
‘No! I can’t bear this, don’t you understand? I can’t bear to see you die!’
I’m sorry. I wasn’t brave enough for any of this. My brothers, they died years ago, you see. It was only my stubbornness, my guilt – I couldn’t let them go. I brought them with me. And those two boys I found, they didn’t mind the new names I gave them. Oruth. Casel.
I couldn’t stop them dying. It was hunger, that’s all. When you have no land, no way through, when they just step over you in the street. I did my best. We were not good enough – they said so, that look in their eyes, stepping over us – we just weren’t good enough. Not clever enough, not brave enough.
