The Malazan Empire, page 148
Objects started striking the figure on the cross, leaving red stains. Pieces of flesh, gods—pieces of flesh—what’s left of the army—this was a level of cruelty that left Duiker cowering inside.
“Over here, Squint!” he heard the commander growl. A figure pushed to Duiker’s side, short, squat, gray-haired. His eyes, buried in a nest of wrinkles, were fixed on that distant figure. “Mercy,” he whispered.
“Well?” the commander demanded.
“That’s half a thousand paces, Blistig—”
“I know.”
“Might take more than one shot, sir.”
“Then get started, damn you.”
The old soldier, wearing a uniform that looked as if it had not been washed or repaired in decades, unslung the longbow from one shoulder. He gathered the string, stepped into the bow’s plane, bent it hard over one thigh. His limbs shook as he edged the string’s loop into its niche. Then he straightened up and studied the arrows in the quiver strapped to his hip.
Another wave of sorcery struck the crows.
After a long moment, Squint selected an arrow. “I’ll try for the chest. Biggest target, sir, and enough good hits and that’ll do the poor soul.”
“Another word, Squint,” Blistig whispered, “and I’ll have your tongue.”
The soldier nocked the arrow. “Clear me some space, then.”
Nether was limp in Duiker’s arms as he dragged her back a step.
The man’s bow, even strung, was as tall as he was. His forearms as he drew the string back were like hemp ropes, bundled and twisted and taut. The string brushed his stubbled jawline as he completed the draw, then locked it in place with a slow, even exhalation.
Duiker saw the man tremble suddenly, and his eyes widened, revealing themselves for the first time—black, small marbles in red-streaked nests.
Raw fear edged Blistig’s voice. “Squint—”
“That’s got to be Coltaine, sir!” the old man gasped. “You want me to kill Coltaine—”
“Squint!”
Nether raised her head and reached out one bloody hand in supplication. “Release him. Please.”
The old man studied her a moment. Tears streamed down his face. The trembling stilled—the bow itself had not moved an inch.
“Hood’s breath!” Duiker hissed. He’s weeping. He can’t aim—the bastard can’t aim—
The bowstring thrummed. The long shaft cut through the sky.
“Oh, gods!” Squint moaned. “Too high—too high!”
It rose, swept through the massed crows untouched and unwavering, began arcing down.
Duiker could have sworn that Coltaine looked up then, lifted his gaze to greet that gift, as the iron head impacted his forehead, shattered the bone, sank deep into his brain and killed him instantly. His head snapped back between the spars of wood, then the arrow was through.
The warriors on the barrow’s slopes flinched back.
The crows shook the air with their eerie cries and plunged down toward the sagging figure on the cross, sweeping over the warriors crowding the slopes. The sorcery that battered at them was shunted aside, scattered by whatever force—Coltaine’s soul?—now rose to join the birds.
The cloud descended on Coltaine, swallowing him entire and covering the cross itself—at that distance they were to Duiker like flies swarming a piece of flesh.
And when they rose, exploding skyward, the warleader of the Crow Clan was gone.
Duiker staggered, leaned hard against the stone wall. Nether slipped down through his motionless arms, her blood-matted hair hiding her face as she curled around his feet.
“I killed him,” Squint moaned. “I killed Coltaine. Who took that man’s life? A broken old soldier of the High Fist’s army—he killed Coltaine…Oh, Beru, have mercy on my soul…”
Duiker wrapped the old man in his arms and held him fiercely. The bow clattered on the platform’s wooden slats. The historian felt the man crumpling against him as if his bones had turned to dust, as if centuries stole into him with each ragged breath.
Commander Blistig gripped the bowman by the back of the collar and yanked him upright. “Before the day’s through, you bastard,” he hissed, “ten thousand soldiers will be voicing your name.” The words shook. “Like a prayer, Squint, like a Hood-damned prayer.”
The historian squeezed his eyes shut. It had become a day to hold in his arms broken figures.
But who will hold me?
Duiker opened his eyes, raised his head. High Fist Pormqual’s mouth was moving, as if in a silent plea for forgiveness. Shock was written on the man’s thin, oiled face and, as he met the historian’s gaze, a flash of raw fear.
Out on the barrow Korbolo Dom’s army was stirring, like reeds in eddies, a restless, meaningless motion. The aftermath was now upon them. Voices rose, wordless cries, but they were too few to break the dreadful silence and its growing power.
The crows were gone, the crossed spars of wood stood empty, rising above the masses with their blood-streaked shafts.
Overhead, the sky had begun to die.
Duiker’s gaze returned to Pormqual. The High Fist seemed to shrink into Mallick Rel’s shadow. He shook his head as if to deny the day.
Thrice denied, High Fist.
Coltaine is dead. They are all dead.
Chapter Twenty-two
I saw the sun’s bolt
arc an unerring path
to the man’s forehead.
As it struck, the crows
converged like night
drawing breath.
DOG CHAIN
SEGLORA
Faint ripples licked the garbage-studded mud beneath the docks. Night insects danced just beyond the water’s reach, and the bank itself seethed in the egg-laying frenzy of some kind of eels. In their thousands, black and gleaming, the small creatures writhed beneath the dancing insects. This silent breaching of the harbor’s shore had for generations passed almost unnoticed by human eyes—a mercy granted only because the eels were wholly unpalatable.
From the darkness beyond came the sound of cascading water. The ripples that reached shore from that commotion were larger, more agitated, the only indication that a stranger had arrived to disturb the scene.
Kalam stumbled ashore, collapsing onto mud that swarmed beneath him. Warm blood still leaked between the fingers of his right hand where it pressed against the knife wound. The assassin wore no shirt, and his chain armor was even now settling somewhere in the mud bottom of Malaz Bay behind him, leaving him with only buckskin leggings and moccasins.
In clambering out of the armor during his sudden plunge into the deep, he had been forced to pull off his belt and knife harness. In his desperate need to return to the surface, to draw air into his lungs, he’d let everything slip from his grasp.
Leaving him now unarmed.
Somewhere out in the bay a ship was being torn apart, the savage noises drifting across the water. Kalam wondered at that, but only briefly. He had other things on his mind.
Faint nips told him that the eels were resenting his intrusion. Struggling to slow his breathing, he squirmed farther up the slimy bank. Broken crockery dug into his flesh as he made his way onto the first of the stone breakwaters. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the seaweed-bearded underside of the pier. A moment later he closed his eyes, began concentrating.
The bleeding in his side slowed to a thin trickle, then ceased.
A few minutes later he sat up and began pulling off the eels that clung like leeches, flinging them out into the darkness where he could hear the skittering of the harbor’s rats. The creatures were closing in, and the assassin had heard enough whispered tales to know he was anything but safe from the fearless hordes in this underworld.
Kalam could wait no longer. He pushed himself up into a crouch, eyeing the ragged piles that rose beyond the breakwater. If the tide had been in, the massive bronze rings bolted three-quarters of the way up those wooden boles would have been within reach. Black pitch coated the piles except where ships had been thrown against them, leaving gaping dents of raw, water-soaked wood.
Only one way up, then…
The assassin made his way along the base of the barrier until he stood opposite a merchant trader. The wide-bellied ship lay canted on its side in the mud. A thick hemp rope stretched from its bow to one of the brass rings high on the pile.
Under normal circumstances the climb would have been a simple one, but even with the inner discipline that was part of a Claw’s training, Kalam could not prevent fresh blood welling from the wound in his side as he made his way up the rope. He felt himself weakening as he worked his way closer to the ring, and when he reached it he paused, limbs shaking, while he sought to recover his strength.
There had been no time for thought since Salk Elan had pitched him over the side, and none now. Cursing his own stupidity was a waste of time. Killers awaited him in Malaz City’s dark, narrow streets and alleys. His next few hours would, in all likelihood, be his last this side of Hood’s Gates.
Kalam had no intention of being easy prey.
Crouched against the huge ring, he worked to slow his breathing once more, to still the seep of blood from his side and the countless leech-wounds.
Eyes on the warehouse roofs with sorcery-enhanced vision, and I’ve not even a shirt to hide my body’s heat. They know I’m wounded, a challenge to the higher disciplines—I doubt even Surly in her prime could manage a cooling of flesh in these straits. Can I?
Once more he closed his eyes. Draw the blood from the surface, draw it down to hide within muscle, close to bone. Every breath must be ice, every touch upon cobble and stone a matching of temperature. No residue in passage, no bloom in movement. What will they expect of a wounded man?
Not this.
He opened his eyes, released one hand from the ring and pressed his forearm against the pitted metal. It felt warm.
Time to move.
The top of the pile was within easy reach. Kalam straightened, slowly pulling himself onto the guano-crusted surface. Front Street stretched out before him. Cargo carts crowded the locked warehouse doors facing onto the street, the nearest one less than twenty paces away.
To run would be to invite death, because his body could not adjust to changes in temperature fast enough and the bloom would be unmissable.
One of those eels has crawled too far, and is about to crawl farther still. Flat on his belly, Kalam edged forward onto the damp cobblestones, his face against them as he sent his breath down beneath him.
Sorcery makes a hunter lazy, tuned only to what they expect will be obvious, given their enhanced senses. They forget the game of shadows, the play of darkness, the most subtle telltale signs…I hope.
He could not look up, but he knew that he was in truth completely exposed, like a worm crossing a flagstone path. A part of his mind threatened to shriek its panic, but the assassin crushed it down. Higher discipline was a ruthless master—of his own mind, his own body, his own soul.
His greatest dread was a break in the overcast sky above the city. The moon had become his enemy, and should it awaken, even the laziest of watchers could not fail to see the shadow Kalam would throw across the cobbles.
Minutes passed as he slid his agonizingly slow way across the street. The city beyond was silent, unnaturally so. A hunters’ maze, prepared for him should he manage to reach it. A thought slipped through—I’ve been spotted already, but why spoil the game? This hunt’s to be a protracted pleasure, something to satisfy the brotherhood’s thirst for vengeance. After all, why prepare a maze if you kill your victim before he can even reach it?
The bitter logic of that was like a hot dagger in his chest, threatening to shatter his camouflage more thoroughly than anything else could. Yet he managed to slow his rise from the street, drawing and holding his breath before looking up.
He was beneath the cart, the top of his head brushing the flatbed’s underside.
He paused. They were expecting a contest of subtlety, but sleight of hand was only one of Kalam’s talents. Always an advantage, those other, unexpected ones…The assassin slipped forward, cleared the first wagon, then the next three before coming to the warehouse doors.
The cargo entrance was of course huge, two sliding palisade-like panels, now chained together with a massive padlock. To one side of them, however, was a smaller side door, also padlocked.
Kalam darted to it and flattened himself against the weathered wood. Both hands closed on the padlock.
There was nothing subtle in the brute strength the assassin possessed. While the padlock itself resisted the twisting force he delivered, the fittings that held it could not. His body pressing against the lock and latch muffled the splintering sounds.
Lock and fittings came away in his hands. Cradling them, Kalam reached out and pulled the door back just enough to let him slip through into the darkness beyond.
A rapid search through the main chamber led him to a large tool rack. He collected a pair of pick-tongs, a hatchet, a burlap sack of cloth-tacks, and a barely serviceable work-knife, its tip broken and its edge heavily nicked. He found a blacksmith’s leather workshirt and slipped it on. In the backroom, he discovered a door that opened onto the alley behind the warehouse.
The Deadhouse, he judged, was about six streets away. But Salk Elan knows—and they’ll be waiting for me. I’d have to be an idiot to make straight for it—and they know that, as well.
Slipping his various makeshift weapons into the shirt’s tool-loops, Kalam unlatched the door, edged it open a crack and peered out. Seeing no movement, he pushed it open a few inches more, scanning the nearest rooftops, then the sky.
No one, and the clouds were a solid cloak. Faint light bled from a few shuttered windows, which had the effect of deepening the gloom everywhere else. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
He stepped outside and padded down one edge of the crate-littered alley.
A pool of deeper darkness occupied an alcove near the alley mouth ahead. Kalam’s eyes found it, locked on it. He pulled out his knife and hatchet and without pause swept straight for it.
The darkness poured its sorcery over him as he plunged into the alcove, his attack so sudden, so unexpected, that the two figures within had no time to draw weapons. The brutal blade of the work-knife tore out one man’s throat. The hatchet chopped down to crush a clavicle and snap ribs. He released that weapon and slapped the palm of his left hand over the man’s mouth as he drove the head back to crunch against the wall. The other Claw—a woman—slid down with a wet gurgling sound.
A moment later Kalam was searching their bodies, collecting throwing stars, throwing knives, two braces of short, wide-bladed stickers, a garrotte and the most cherished prize of all, a ribless Claw crossbow, screw-loaded, compact and deadly—if only at close range. Eight quarrels accompanied it, each one with an iron head that glistened with the poison called White Paralt.
Kalam appropriated the thin, black cloak from the man’s corpse, pulling up its hood with its gauze vents positioned over his ears. The projecting cowl was also of gauze, ensuring peripheral vision.
The sorcery was fading as he completed his accoutrements, revealing that at least one of his victims had been a mage. Damned sloppy—Topper’s letting them get soft.
He emerged from the alcove, raised his head and sniffed the air. A Hand’s link had been broken—they would know that trouble had arrived, and would even now be slowly, cautiously closing in.
Kalam smiled. You wanted a quarry on the run. Sorry to disappoint you.
He set out into the night, hunting Claw.
The Hand’s leader cocked his head, then stepped into the clear. A moment later two figures emerged from the alley and closed to confer.
“Blood’s been spilled,” the leader murmured. “Topper shall be—”
A soft clicking made him turn. “Ah, now we learn the details,” the man said, watching their cloaked companion approach.
“The killer has arrived,” the newcomer growled.
“I am about to pluck Topper’s strand—”
“Good, it’s time he understood.”
“What—”
Both of the leader’s companions fell to the cobbles. An enormous fist connected with the leader’s face. Bone and cartilage crunched. The leader blinked unseeing eyes that filled with blood. With septum lodged in his forebrain, he crumpled.
Kalam crouched down to whisper in the dead man’s ear. “I know you can hear me, Topper. Two Hands left. Run and hide—I’ll still find you.”
He straightened, retrieved his weapons.
The corpse at his feet gurgled a wet laugh and the assassin looked down as a spectral voice emerged from the dead man’s lips. “Welcome back, Kalam. Two Hands, you said? Not any more, old friend—”
“Scared you, did I?”
“Salk Elan appears to have let you off too easily. I shall not be as kind, I’m afraid—”
“I know where you are, Topper, and I’m coming for you.”
There was a long silence, then the corpse spoke one last time. “By all means, my friend.”
The Imperial Warren was holed like cheesecloth that night, as Hand after Hand of Claw pushed through into the city. One such portal opened directly in a lone man’s path—and the five figures announced their arrival with gasping breaths and splashed blood, the swift and as swiftly done noises of dying. Not one had managed more than a step onto the slick cobbles of Malaz City before their flesh began cooling in the gentle night.
Screams echoed down streets and alleys as denizens foolish enough to brave the open paid for their temerity with their lives. The Claw took no more chances.
The game that Kalam had turned, turned yet again.
The mosaic at their feet was endless, the multicolored stones creating a pattern that defied comprehension, the strange floor stretching away to every horizon. The echo of their boots was muted and faintly sonorous.
