The Malazan Empire, page 205
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—’
‘And,’ the other growled, ‘when we’re outa iron we use our teeth, sir.’
‘How many brothers did you two grow up with?’
‘Seven, only they all ran away as soon as they was able. So did Da, but Mother was better off without ‘im and that wasn’t just bluster when she said so, neither.’
Whiskeyjack edged closer, rolling up his left sleeve. He leaned down and showed the two marines his forearm. ‘See those scars – no, these ones here.’
‘A nice even bite,’ the nearest woman observed. ‘Pretty small, though.’
‘She was five, the little banshee. I was sixteen. The first fight I ever lost.’
‘Did the lass grow up to be a soldier, Commander?’
He straightened, lowering his sleeve. ‘Hood, no. When she was twelve, she set off to marry a king. Or so she claimed. That was the last any of us ever saw or heard of her.’
‘I’d bet she did just that, sir,’ the first woman said. ‘If she was anything like you.’
‘Now I’m choking on more than just dust, soldier. Carry on.’
Whiskeyjack trotted ahead until he reached Silverfox.
‘They’ll die for you now,’ she said as soon as he came alongside. ‘I know,’ she continued, ‘you don’t do it on purpose. There’s nothing calculated when you’re being human, old friend. That’s what makes you so deadly.’
‘No wonder you’re walking here on your own,’ he replied.
Her smile was sardonic. ‘We’re very much alike, you know. All we need do is cup our hands and ten thousand souls rush in to fill them. And every now and then one of us recognizes that fact, and the sudden, overwhelming pressure hardens us a little more deep down inside. And what was soft gets a little smaller, a little weaker.’
‘Not weaker, Silverfox. Rather, more concentrated, more selective. That you feel the burden at all is proof that it remains alive and well.’
‘There is a difference, now that I think on it,’ she said. ‘For you, ten thousand souls. For me, a hundred thousand.’
He shrugged.
She was about to continue, but a sharp crack filled the air behind them. They spun to see a savage parting in their wake, a thousand paces away, from which poured a crimson river. The two marines backpedalled as the torrent tumbled towards them.
The high grasses blackened, wavered, then sank down on all sides. Distant shouts rose from the Rhivi who had seen the conflagration.
The Trygalle wagon that emerged from the fissure burned with black fire. The horses themselves were engulfed, their screams shrill and horrible as they plunged madly onto the flooded plain. The beasts were devoured in moments, leaving the wagon to roll forward of its own momentum in the spreading red stream. One front wheel collapsed. The huge contrivance pitched, pivoted, burnt bodies falling from its flanks, then careened onto its side in an explosion of ebon flames.
The second wagon that emerged was licked by the same sorcerous fire, though not yet out of control. A nimbus of protective magic surrounded the eight horses in the train, fraying even as they thundered into the clear, splashing through the river of blood that continued to spread out from the portal. The driver, standing like a mad apparition with his cloak streaming black fire, bellowed a warning to the two marines before leaning hard to one side and sawing the traces. The horses swerved, pulling the huge wagon onto two wheels a moment before it came crunching back down. A guardsman who had been clinging to its side was thrown by the impact, landing with a turgid splash in the spreading river. A red-sheathed arm rose above the tide, then sank back down and out of sight.
The horses and wagon missed the two marines by a dozen paces, slowing as they cleared the river, its fires dying.
A third wagon appeared, followed by another, and another. The vehicle that then emerged was the size of a house, rolling on scores of iron-spoked wheels, caged by shimmering sorcery. Over thirty dray horses pulled it, but, Whiskeyjack guessed, even that many of the powerful beasts would be insufficient if not for the visible magic carrying much of the enormous wagon’s weight.
Behind it the portal closed abruptly in a spray of blood.
The commander glanced down to see his horse’s legs ankle-deep in the now-slowing flow. He glanced over at Silverfox. She stood motionless, looking down at the liquid as it lapped against her bared shins. ‘This blood,’ she said slowly, almost disbelieving, ‘is his.’
‘Who?’
She looked up, her expression one of dismay. ‘An Elder God’s. A – a friend’s. This is what is filling the warrens. He has been wounded. Somehow. Wounded … perhaps fatally – gods! The warrens!’
With a curse, Whiskeyjack collected his reins and kicked his horse into a splashing canter towards the giant wagon.
Massive gouges had been ripped from its ornate sides. Blackened smears showed where guards had once clung. Smoke drifted above the entire train. Figures had begun emerging, staggering as if blind, moaning as if their souls had been torn from their bodies. He saw guards fall to their knees in the sludgy blood, weeping or simply bowing in shuddering silence.
The side door nearest Whiskeyjack opened as he rode up.
A woman climbed weakly into view, was helped down the steps. She pushed her companions away once her boots sank into the crimson, grass-matted mud and found purchase.
The commander dismounted.
The merchant bowed her head, her red-rimmed eyes holding steady as she drew herself straight. ‘Please forgive the delay, sir,’ she said in a voice that rasped with exhaustion.
‘I take it you will find an alternate route back to Darujhistan,’ Whiskeyjack said, eyeing the wagon behind her.
‘We shall decide once we assess the damage.’ She faced the dust-cloud to the east. ‘Has your army encamped for the night?’
‘No doubt the order’s been given.’
‘Good. We’re in no condition to chase you.’
‘I’ve noticed.’
Three guards – shareholders – approached from one of the lead wagons, struggling beneath the weight of a huge, bestial arm, torn at the shoulder and still dripping blood. Three taloned fingers and two opposable thumbs twitched and waved a hand’s breath away from the face of one of the guards. All three men were grinning.
‘We figured it was still there, Haradas! Lost the other three, though. Still, ain’t it a beauty?’
The merchant, Haradas, briefly closed her eyes and sighed. ‘The attack came early on,’ she explained to Whiskeyjack. ‘A score of demons, probably as lost and frightened as we were.’
‘And why should they attack you?’
‘Wasn’t an attack, sir,’ one of the guards said. ‘They just wanted a ride outa that nightmare. We would’ve obliged, too, only they was too heavy—’
‘And they didn’t sign a waiver neither,’ another guard pointed out. ‘We even offered a stake—’
‘Enough, gentlemen,’ Haradas said. ‘Take that thing away.’
But the three men had come too close to the lead wheel of the huge wagon. As soon as the demonic hand made contact with the rim it closed with a snap around it. The three guards leapt back, leaving the arm hanging from the wheel.
‘Oh, that’s just terrific!’ Haradas snapped. ‘And whenever will we get that off?’
‘When the fingers wear through, I guess,’ a guard replied, frowning at the arm. ‘Gonna be a lumpy ride for a while, dear. Sorry about that.’
A troop of riders approached from the army’s train.
‘Your escort’s arrived,’ Whiskeyjack noted. ‘We will ask for a detailed report of the journey, mistress – I suggest you stand down until this evening, and leave the details of distribution to your second.’
She nodded. ‘Good idea.’
The commander searched for Silverfox. She had resumed her march, the two marines trailing. The blood of the god had stained the marines’ boots and the Rhivi’s legs.
Across the plain, for two hundred or more paces, the earth looked like a red matted, tattered blanket, plucked and torn into dissolving disarray.
* * *
As ever, Kallor’s thoughts were dark.
Ashes and dust. The fools prattle on and on in the command tent, a vast waste of time. Death flows through the warrens – what matter? Order ever succumbs to chaos, broken unto itself by the very strictures it imposes. The world will do better without mages. I for one will not rue the demise of sorcery.
The lone candle, streaked with the crushed fragments of a rare sea-worm, gusted thick, heavy smoke, filling the tent. Shadows crawled beneath the drifting plumes. Flickering yellow light glinted off ancient, oft-mended armour.
Seated on the ornate, ironwood throne, Kallor breathed deep of the invigorating fumes. Alchemy is not magic. The arcana of the natural world holds far more wonders than any wizard could conjure in a thousand lifetimes. These Century Candles, for one, are well named. Upon my life, yet another layer seeps into my flesh and bone – I can feel it with each breath. A good thing, too. Who would want to live for ever in a body too frail to move? Another hundred years, gained in the passage of a single night, in the depth of this one reach of columned wax. And I have scores more …
No matter the stretch of decades and centuries, no matter the interminable boredom of inactivity that was so much a part of living, there were moments … moments when I must act, explosively, with certainty. And all that seemed nothing before was in truth preparation. There are creatures that hunt without moving; when they become perfectly still, perfectly motionless, they are at their most dangerous. I am as such a creature. I have always been so, yet all who know me are … gone. Ashes and dust. The children who now surround me with their gibbering worries are blind to the hunter in their midst. Blind …
Pale hands gripping the arms of the throne, he sat unmoving, stalking the landscape of his own memories, dragging them forth like corpses pulled from the ground, drawing their visages close for a moment before casting them away and moving on.
Eight mighty wizards, hands linked, voices rising in unison. Desperate for power. Seeking it from a distant, unknown realm. Unsuspecting, curious, the strange god in that strange place edged closer, then the trap was sprung. Down he came, torn to pieces yet remaining alive. Brought down, shattering a continent, obliterating warrens. Himself broken, damaged, crippled …
Eight mighty wizards, who sought to oppose me and so loosed a nightmare that rises once more, millennia later. Fools. Now, they are dust and ashes …
Three gods, assailing my realm. Too many insults delivered by my hand. My existence had gone beyond irritation, and so they banded together to crush me once and for all. In their ignorance, they assumed I would play by their rules. Either fight, or yield my realm. My, weren’t they surprised, striding into my empire, only to find … nothing left alive. Nothing but charred bones and lifeless ash.
They could not comprehend – nor did they ever – that I would yield nothing. Rather than surrender all I had fashioned, I destroyed it. That is the privilege of the creator – to give, then to take away. I shall never forget the world’s death cry – for it was the voice of my triumph …
And one of you remains, pursuing me once more. Oh, I know it is you, K’rul. But, instead of me, you have found another enemy, and he is killing you. Slowly, deliciously. You have returned to this realm, only to die, as I said you would. And did you know? Your sister has succumbed to my ancient curse as well. So little left of her, will she ever recover? Not if I can help it.
A faint smile spread across his withered, pallid face.
His eyes narrowed as a portal began to take shape before him. Miasmic power swirled from it. A figure emerged, tall, gaunt, a face shattered – massive cuts gaping red, the shards of broken bone glimmering in the candlelight. The portal closed behind the Jaghut, who stood relaxed, eyes flickering pools of darkness.
‘I convey greetings from the Crippled God,’ the Jaghut said, ‘to you, Kallor’ – he paused to survey the tent’s interior – ‘and your vast empire.’
‘You tempt me,’ Kallor rasped, ‘to add to your … facial distress, Gethol. My empire may be gone, but I shall not yield this throne. You, of all people, should recognize that I am not yet done in my ambitions, and I am a patient man.’
Gethol grunted a laugh. ‘Ah, dear Kallor. You are to me the exception to the rule that patience is a virtue.’
‘I can destroy you, Jaghut, no matter who you call master these days. I can complete what your capable punisher began. Do you doubt me?’
‘Most certainly not,’ Gethol replied easily. ‘I’ve seen you wield that two-handed sword of yours.’
‘Then withdraw your verbal knives and tell me what you do here.’
‘Apologies for disrupting your … concentration. I shall now explain. I am Herald to the Crippled God – aye, a new House has come to the Deck of Dragons. The House of Chains. The first renditions have been fashioned. And soon every Reader of the Deck will be seeking their likenesses.’
Kallor snorted. ‘And you expect this gambit to work? That House shall be assailed. Obliterated.’
‘Oh, the battle is well under way, old man. You cannot be blind to that, nor to the fact that we are winning.’
Kallor’s eyes thinned to slits. ‘The poisoning of the warrens? The Crippled God is a fool. What point in destroying the power he requires to assert his claim? Without the warrens, the Deck of Dragons is nothing.’
‘The appellation “poison” is erroneous, Kallor. Rather, consider the infection one of enforcing a certain … alteration … to the warrens. Aye, those who resist it view it as a deadly manifestation, a “poison” indeed. But only because its primary effect is to make the warrens impassable to them. Servants of the Crippled God, however, will find themselves able to travel freely in the paths.’
‘I am servant to no-one,’ Kallor growled.
‘The position of High King is vacant within the Crippled God’s House of Chains.’
Kallor shrugged. ‘None the less requiring that I stain my knees before the Chained One.’
‘No such gestures are demanded of the High King. The House of Chains exists beyond the Crippled God’s influence – is that not obvious? He is chained, after all. Trapped in a lifeless fragment of a long-dead warren. Bound to the flesh of the Sleeping Goddess – aye, that has proved his singular means of efficacy, but it is limited. Understand, Kallor, that the Crippled God now casts the House of Chains into the world, indeed, abandons it to its fate. Survival depends on those who come to the titles it contains. Some of those the Chained One can influence – though never directly – whilst others, such as that of King of High House Chains, must be freely assumed.’
‘If so,’ Kallor rumbled after a long moment, ‘why are you not the King?’
Gethol bowed his head. ‘You honour me, sir,’ he said drily. ‘I am, however, content to be Herald—’
‘Under the delusion that the messenger is ever spared, no matter what the message? You were never as smart as your brother, were you? Somewhere, Gothos must be laughing.’
‘Gothos never laughs. But, given that I know where he languishes, I do. Often. Now, should I remain here much longer awaiting your answer, my presence may well be detected. There are Tiste Andii nearby—’
‘Very near. Not to mention Caladan Brood. Lucky for you Anomander Rake has left – returned to Moon’s Spawn, wherever it is—’
‘Its location must be discovered, revealed to the Crippled God.’
The grey-haired warrior raised an eyebrow. ‘A task for the King?’
‘Does betrayal sting your sense of honour, Kallor?’
‘If you call it a sudden reversal of strategy, the sting fades. What I require, in exchange, is an opportunity, arranged howsoever the Crippled God pleases.’
‘What is the nature of this opportunity, High King?’
Kallor smiled, then his expression hardened. ‘The woman Silverfox … a moment of vulnerability, that is all I ask.’
Gethol slowly bowed. ‘I am your Herald, sire, and shall convey your desires to the Crippled God.’
‘Tell me,’ Kallor said, ‘before you go. Does this throne suit the House of Chains, Gethol?’
The Jaghut studied the battered, iron-coloured wood, noted the cracks in its frame. ‘It most certainly does, sire.’
‘Begone, then.’
The Herald bowed once more, the portal opening behind him. A moment later he stepped back, and was gone.
Smoke from the candle swirled in the wake of the vanishing portal. Kallor drew a deep breath. Adding years and years of renewed vigour. He sat motionless … a hunter on the edge of ambush. Suitably explosive. Suitably deadly.
