The Malazan Empire, page 218
Karnadas made no answer. Neither surgeon stirred awake. After a moment, the messenger cleared her throat. ‘Sir, it is less than a bell before midnight. The rain came with the dusk.’
With the dusk, and with a man’s death. The hand holding his slackened in increments. ‘How many soldiers here, sir? How many do I still command?’
She flinched. ‘There are one hundred and thirty-seven in all, sir. Of these, ninety-six recruits. Of the Manes who stood with you at the cemetery, eleven soldiers survive.’
‘Our barracks?’
‘Fallen, sir. The structure burns.’
‘Jelarkan’s Palace?’
She shook her head. ‘No word, sir.’
Itkovian slowly disengaged his hand from Karnadas’s limp grip and looked down upon the motionless figure. He stroked the wisps of the man’s hair. Moments passed, then the Shield Anvil broke the silence. ‘Find us an orderly, sir. The Destriant is dead.’
Her eyes widened on him.
‘He joins our Mortal Sword, Brukhalian. It is done.’
Following these words, Itkovian settled his boots onto the floor, almost blacking out at the pain in his ruined knee. He drew a deep, shaky breath, slowly straightened. ‘Do any armourers remain?’
‘An apprentice, sir,’ she replied after a moment, her tone brittle as burned leather.
‘I shall need a brace for my knee, sir. Anything he or she can fashion.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she whispered. ‘Shield Anvil—’
He paused in his search for his surcoat, glanced over. The woman had gone deathly white.
‘I – I voice the Reve’s Thirteenth Law. I request … rightful punishment.’ She was trembling.
‘Punishment, sir? What was your crime?’
‘I delivered the message. From Rath’Fener’s acolyte.’ She reeled at her own words, armour clunking as her back came up against the door. ‘Fener forgive me! I sent the Mortal Sword to his death!’
Itkovian’s eyes thinned as he studied her. ‘You are the recruit who accompanied me and my wings on the last excursion onto the plain. My apologies, sir, for not recognizing you earlier. I should have anticipated the intervening … experience, writ so clearly upon your face. I deny your voicing the Reve, soldier. Now, find us that orderly, and the apprentice.’
‘But sir—’
‘Brukhalian was not deceived. Do you understand? Moreover, your presence here evinces your innocence in the matter. Had you been party to the betrayal, you would have ridden with him at his command. And would have been dealt with accordingly. Now go. We cannot wait here much longer.’
Ignoring the tears now streaking her mud-spattered face, the Shield Anvil slowly made his way to a heap of discarded armour. A moment later she swung about, opened the door and fled out into the hallway.
Itkovian paused in his hobbling. He glanced over at the sleeping cutters. ‘I am the bearer of Fener’s grief,’he intoned in a whisper. ‘I am my vow incarnate. This, and in all that follows. We are not yet done here. I am not yet done. Behold, I yield to nothing.’ He straightened, expressionless once more. His pain retreated. Soon, it would be irrelevant.
* * *
One hundred and thirty-seven armoured faces looked upon the Shield Anvil. Through the streaming rain, he in turn surveyed them as they stood in their ranks on the dark street. Two warhorses remained; his own – chest wound a red welt but fire undimmed in the eyes – and Brukhalian’s black destrier. The messenger held both sets of reins.
Strips from a banded cuirass had been lashed to either side of Itkovian’s damaged knee, providing sufficient flex for him to ride and walk while offering vital support when he stood. The rents in his chain surcoat had been mended with copper wire; the weight of the sleeve was noticeable only on his left arm – there was little strength in it, and the skin between his neck and shoulder felt stretched and hot over the incompletely knitted tissue beneath. Straps had been rigged that would hold his arm at an angle when it bore his shield.
‘Grey Swords.’ The Shield Anvil addressed them. ‘We have work before us. Our captain and her sergeants have formed you into squads. We march to the palace of the prince. The journey is not far. It appears that the enemy is chiefly massed around the Thrall. Should we happen to encounter roving bands, however, they will probably be small, and most likely Tenescowri and thus ill armed and untrained. March, therefore, in readiness.’ Itkovian faced his lone captain, who had only days earlier been the master-sergeant responsible for the training of the Capan recruits. ‘Sir, array the squads.’
The woman nodded.
Itkovian strode to his horse. A makeshift mounting block had been prepared, easing the transition into the saddle. Accepting the reins from the messenger, the Shield Anvil looked down upon her. ‘The captain will walk with her soldiers, sir,’ he said. ‘The Mortal Sword’s horse should be ridden. She is yours, recruit. She will know your capacity by your seat, and respond in accordance to ensure your safety. It will not avail you to defy her in this.’
Blinking, the young woman slowly nodded.
‘Mount up, then, sir, and ride at my side.’
* * *
The ramp leading to Jelarkan’s Palace’s narrow, arched gateway was unoccupied, swept clean. The gates themselves had been shattered. Faint torchlight glimmered from the antechamber immediately beyond. Not a single soldier stood on the walls or revetments. Apart from the drumming rain, there was naught but silence to greet Itkovian and his Grey Swords.
Point squads had scouted to the gate’s threshold, confirming that the enemy was nowhere to be seen. Nor, it seemed, were there any surviving defenders. Or bodies.
Smoke and hissing mist filled the spaces between stone, sheets of rain the night sky overhead. All sounds of fighting in other sections were gone.
Brukhalian had asked for six weeks. Itkovian had given him less than three days. The truth of that gnawed within him, as if a broken blade or arrowhead still remained in his body – missed by the cutters – buried in his gut, wrapping its pain around his heart.
But I am not yet done.
He held to those words. Back straight, teeth gritted. A gesture with one gauntleted hand sent the first scouts through the gateway. They were gone for some time, then a single runner returned, padding down the ramp to where Itkovian waited.
‘Sir,’ the woman reported, ‘there are Tenescowri within. In the main hall, we believe. Sounds of feasting and revelry.’
‘And are the approaches guarded?’ the Shield Anvil asked.
‘The three that we have found are not, sir.’
There were four entrances to Jelarkan’s main hall. The double doors facing the gate on the other side of the antechamber, two flanking portals in the chamber itself that led to guest and guard rooms, and a narrow, curtain-shielded passage directly behind the prince’s throne. ‘Very well. Captain, position one squad to each of the two side entrances. Quietly. Six squads here at the gate. The remaining five are with me.’
The Shield Anvil carefully dismounted, landing mostly on his undamaged leg. He reeled none the less at the jolt that shot up his spine. The messenger had followed suit and now stepped to his side. Slowing his breathing, he glanced at her. ‘Get me my shield,’ he grated.
Another soldier assisted her in strapping the bronze shield to Itkovian’s arm, drawing the supporting sling over his shoulder.
The Shield Anvil lowered the visor on his helm, then slid his sword from its scabbard while the captain issued commands to the five squads arrayed around them.
‘Those with crossbows to the second line, stay low and keep your weapons cocked but lower still. Front line overlapping shields, swords on guard. All visors down. Sir,’ the captain addressed Itkovian, ‘we are ready.’
He nodded, said to the recruit, ‘You are to be on my left. Now, forward at my pace.’
He strode slowly up the rain-slick ramp.
Fifty-three silent soldiers followed.
Into the antechamber, the squarish, high-ceilinged room lit by a single wavering torch set in a bracket on the right-hand wall. The two squads assigned to the chamber split to either side as the Shield Anvil led his troop towards the broad hallway where waited the main hall’s double doors. The patter of shed rain accompanied them.
Ahead, muted through the thick, oak doors, was the sound of voices. Laughter tinged with hysteria. The crackle of burning wood.
Itkovian did not pause upon reaching the entrance, using shield and mailed fist to thrust open the twin doors. As he stepped through, the squads behind him spread out to take command of his end of the long, vaulted chamber.
Faces snapped round. Gaunt figures in rags lurched up from the chairs on either side of the long table. Utensils clattered and bones thumped to the floor. A wild-haired woman shrieked, scrabbled madly towards the young man seated in Jelarkan’s throne.
‘Gentle Mother,’ the man rasped, reaching out a shiny, grease-stained hand to her, yet holding his yellow-tinged eyes on Itkovian all the while, ‘be calmed.’
She grasped that hand in both of hers, fell to her knees whimpering.
‘These are naught but guests, Mother. Come too late, alas, to partake of the … royal feast.’
Someone screamed a laugh.
On the centre of the table was a huge silver plate, on which had been made a fire from snapped chair legs and picture frames – mostly charcoal now. Spitted above it was the remains of a skinned human torso, no longer being turned, underside blackening. Severed at the knees, the two thighs bound as one by copper wire. Arms pulled off at the shoulders, though they too had once been tied. Head left on, split and charred.
Knives had sliced off the flesh in places all over the body. Thighs, buttocks, chest, back, face. But this, Itkovian knew, had not been a feast born of hunger. These Tenescowri in this room looked better fed than any other he had yet seen. No, here, this night, had been a celebration.
To the left of the throne, half in shadow, was an X-shaped cross made from two pikes. On it was stretched Prince Jelarkan’s skin.
‘The dear prince was dead before we began cooking,’ the young man on the throne said. ‘We are not consciously cruel, after all. You are not Brukhalian, for Brukhalian is dead. You must be Itkovian, the so-called Shield Anvil of Fener.’
Seerdomin appeared from behind the throne, pale-armoured and helmed, fur-backed, their faces hidden by grilled face-baskets, heavy battleaxes in their gauntleted hands. Four, eight, a dozen. Twenty. And still more filed out.
The man on the throne smiled. ‘Your soldiers look … tired. Unequal to this particular task. Do you know me, Itkovian? I am Anaster, First Child of the Dead Seed. Tell me, where are the people of this city? What have you done with them? Oh, let me guess. They cower in tunnels beneath the streets. Guarded by a handful of surviving Gidrath, a company or two of your Grey Swords, some of the prince’s Capan Guard. I imagine Prince Arard hides below as well. A shame, that. We have wanted him a long time. Well, the search for the hidden entrances continues. They shall be found. Capustan shall be cleansed, Shield Anvil, though, alas, you will not live to see that glorious day.’
Itkovian studied the young man, and saw what he had not expected to see. ‘First Child,’ he said. ‘There is despair within you. I will take it from you, sir, and with it your burdens.’
Anaster jolted as if he had been physically struck. He drew his knees up, climbed onto the seat of the throne, face twitching. A hand closed on the strange obsidian dagger in his belt, then flinched away as if the stone was hot.
His mother screamed, clawed up her son’s outstretched arm. Snarling, he pulled himself free. She sank down to the floor, curled up.
‘I am not your father,’ Itkovian continued, ‘but I shall be as him. Unleash your flood, First Child.’
The young man stared, lips peeling back to bare his teeth. ‘Who – what are you?’ he hissed.
The captain stepped forward. ‘We forgive your ignorance, sir,’ she said. ‘He is the Shield Anvil. Fener knows grief, so much grief that it is beyond his capacity to withstand it. And so he chooses a human heart. Armoured. A mortal soul, to assume the sorrow of the world. The Shield Anvil.
‘These days and nights have witnessed vast sorrow, profound shame – all of which, we see now, is writ as plain knowledge in your eyes. You cannot deceive yourself, sir, can you?’
‘You never could,’ Itkovian said. ‘Give me your despair, First Child. I am ready to receive it’
Anaster’s wail rang through the main hall. He clambered still further up the throne’s high back, arms wrapping around himself.
All eyes held on him.
No-one moved.
Chest heaving, the First Child stared at Itkovian. Then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘you shall not have my – my despair.’
The captain hissed. ‘This is a gift! First Child—’
‘Not!’
Itkovian seemed to sag. Sword-point wavering, lowering. The recruit moved close to support the Shield Anvil.
‘You cannot have it! You cannot have it!’
The captain’s eyes were wide as she turned to Itkovian. ‘Sir, I am unable to countenance this—’
The Shield Anvil shook his head, slowly straightened once more. ‘No, I understand. The First Child – within him there is naught but despair. Without it…’
He is as nothing.
‘I want them all killed!’ Anaster shrieked brokenly. ‘Seerdomin! Kill them all!’
Forty Seerdomin surged forward to either side of the table.
The captain snapped a command. The front line behind her dropped in unison to one knee. The second line raised into view their crossbows. Twenty-four quarrels crossed the room. Not one missed.
From the flanking guest-room entrances, more quarrels flashed.
The front line behind Itkovian rose and readied their weapons.
Only six Seerdomin remained standing. Figures both writhing and motionless covered the floor.
The Tenescowri at the table were fleeing towards the portal behind the throne.
Anaster himself was the first to reach it, his mother a step behind him.
The Seerdomin charged Itkovian.
I am not yet done.
His blade flashed. A helmed head leapt from its shoulders. A backhand slash snapped chain links and opened wide another Seerdomin’s belly.
Crossbows sounded once more.
And the Grey Swords stood unopposed.
The Shield Anvil lowered his weapon. ‘Captain,’ he said after a moment. ‘Retrieve the prince’s body. Have the skin taken down. We shall return Prince Jelarkan to his throne, to his rightful place. And this room, we shall now hold. For a time. In the name of the prince.’
‘The First Child—’
Itkovian faced her. ‘We will meet him again. I am his only salvation, sir, and I shall not fail him.’
‘You are the Shield Anvil,’ she intoned.
‘I am the Shield Anvil.’ I am Fener’s grief. I am the world’s grief. And I will hold. I will hold it all, for we are not yet done.
Chapter Seventeen
What the soul can house, flesh cannot fathom.
THE REVE OF FENER
IMARAK, FIRST DESTRIANT
Hot, fevered, the pebbled skin moved like a damp rock-filled sack. The Matron’s body exuded an acrid oil. It had permeated Toc the Younger’s ragged clothes. He slid between folds of flesh as the huge, bloated K’Chain Che’Malle shifted about on the gritty floor, massive arms wrapped around him in a fierce embrace.
Darkness commanded the cave. The glimmers of light he saw were born within his mind. Illusions that might have been memories. Torn, fragmented scenes, of yellow-grassed low hills beneath warm sunlight. Figures, caught at the very edge of his vision. Some wore masks. One was naught but dead skin stretched over robust bone. Another was … beauty. Perfection. He believed in none of them. Their faces were the faces of his madness, looming ever closer, hovering at his shoulder.
When sleep took him he, dreamed of wolves. Hunting, not to feed, but to deliver … something else; he knew not what. The quarry wandered alone, the quarry fled when it saw him. Brothers and sisters at his side, he pursued. Relentless, leagues passing effortlessly beneath his paws. The small, frightened creature could not elude them. He and his kin drew nearer, exhausting it against the slopes of hills, until finally it faltered, then collapsed. They surrounded it.
As they closed in, to deliver … what was to be delivered … the quarry vanished.
Shock, then despair.
He and his kin would circle the spot where she’d lain. Heads lifted skyward, mournful howls issuing from their throats. Howling without surcease. Until Toc the Younger blinked awake, in the embrace of the Matron, the turgid air of the cave seeming to dance with the fading echoes of his howls. The creature would tighten her hold, then. Whimpering, prodding the back of his neck with a fanged snout, her breath like sugared milk.
The cycles of his life. Sleep, then wakefulness punctuated by hallucinations. Smeared scenes of figures in golden sunlight, delusions of being a babe in his mother’s arms, suckling at her breast – the Matron possessed no breasts, so he knew these to be delusions, yet was sustained by them none the less – and times when he began voiding his bladder and bowels, and she held him out when he did this, so he fouled only himself. She would then lick him clean, a gesture that stripped him of his last shreds of dignity.
Her embrace broke bones. The more he screamed with the pain, the tighter she held him. He had learned to suffer in silence. His bones knitted with preternatural swiftness. Sometimes unevenly. He knew himself to be malformed – his chest, his hips, the blades of his shoulders.
Then there came the visitations. A ghostly face, sheathed in the wrinkled visage of an old man, the hint of gleaming tusks, took form within his mind. Yellowed eyes that shone with glee fixed on his own.
Familiar, those overlapping faces, but Toc was unable to take his recognition any further.
The visitor would speak to him.
