The Malazan Empire, page 351
‘I’m to go alone?’
‘No. You will have Greyfrog with you. And one other…I hope.’
She nodded. ‘I am ready. I have had enough of this place. I no longer dream of vengeance against Bidithal. I just want to be gone. Is that cowardly of me?’
L’oric slowly shook his head. ‘Bidithal will be taken care of, lass, in a manner befitting his crimes.’
‘If you are intending to murder him, then I would advise against sending Greyfrog with me. Bidithal is powerful—perhaps more so than you realize, I can travel alone—no-one will be hunting me, after all.’
‘No. Much as I would like to kill Bidithal myself, it will not be by my hand.’
‘There is something ominous in what you are saying, or, perhaps, in what you’re not saying, L’oric.’
‘There will be a convergence, Felisin. With some…unexpected guests. And I do not think anyone here will survive their company for long. There will be…vast slaughter.’
‘Then why are you staying?’
‘To witness, lass. For as long as I can.’
‘Why?’
He grimaced. ‘As I said, I am still seeking answers.’
‘And are they important enough to risk your own life?’
‘They are. And now, I will leave you here in Greyfrog’s trust for a time. You are safe, and when I return it will be with the necessary supplies and mounts.’
She glanced over at the scaled, ape-like creature with its four eyes. ‘Safe, you said. At least until it gets hungry.’
‘Appreciative. I will protect this one. But do not be gone too long. Ha ha.’
Dawn was breathing light into the eastern sky as Heboric stepped outside to await his visitor. The Destriant remained in as much darkness as he could manage, not to hide from L’oric—whom he now watched stride into view and approach—but against any other watchers. They might well discern a figure, crouched there in the tent’s doorway, but little more than that. He had drawn a heavy cloak about himself, hood drawn up over his head, and he kept his hands beneath the folds.
L’oric’s steps slowed as he drew near. There would be no hiding the truth from this man, and Heboric smiled as he saw the High Mage’s eyes widen.
‘Aye,’ Heboric muttered, ‘I was reluctant. But it is done, and I have made peace with that.’
‘And what is Treach’s interest here?’ L’oric asked after a long, uneasy moment.
‘There will be a battle,’ Heboric replied, shrugging. ‘Beyond that…well, I’m not sure. We’ll see, I expect.’
L’oric looked weary. ‘I was hoping to convince you to leave. To take Felisin away from here.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
‘Move her camp a league, out beyond the northeast edge of the oasis. Three saddled horses, three more pack horses. Food and water sufficient for three, to take us as far as G’danisban.’
‘Three?’
Heboric smiled. ‘You are not aware of it, but there is a certain…poetry to there being three of us.’
‘Very well. And how long should she expect to wait?’
‘As long as she deems acceptable, L’oric. Like you, I intend to remain here for a few days yet.’
His eyes grew veiled. ‘The convergence.’
Heboric nodded.
L’oric sighed. ‘We are fools, you and I.’
‘Probably.’
‘I had once hoped, Ghost Hands, for an alliance between us.’
‘It exists, more or less, L’oric. Sufficient to ensure Felisin’s safety. Not that we have managed well in that responsibility thus far. I could have helped,’ Heboric growled.
‘I am surprised, if you know what Bidithal did to her, that you have not sought vengeance.’
‘Vengeance? What is the point in that? No, L’oric, I have a better answer to Bidithal’s butchery. Leave Bidithal to his fate…’
The High Mage started, then smiled. ‘Odd, only a short time ago I voiced similar words to Felisin.’
Heboric watched the man walk away. After a moment, the Destriant turned and re-entered his temple.
‘There is something…inexorable about them…’
They were in the path of the distant legions, seeing the glimmer of iron wavering like molten metal beneath a pillar of dust that, from this angle, seemed to rise straight up, spreading out in a hazy stain in the high desert winds. At Leoman’s words, Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas shivered. Dust was sifting down the folds of his ragged telaba; the air this close to the Whirlwind Wall was thick with suspended sand, filling his mouth with grit.
Leoman twisted in his saddle to study his warriors.
Anchoring his splintered lance into the stirrup cup, Corabb settled back in the saddle. He was exhausted. Virtually every night, they had attempted raids, and even when his own company had not been directly involved in the fighting there had been retreats to cover, counterattacks to blunt, then flight. Always flight. Had Sha’ik given Leoman five thousand warriors, the Adjunct and her army would be the ones retreating. All the way back to Aren, mauled and limping.
Leoman had done what he could with what he had, however, and they had purchased—with blood—a handful of precious days. Moreover, they had gauged the Adjunct’s tactics, and the mettle of the soldiers. More than once, concerted pressure on the regular infantry had buckled them, and had Leoman the numbers, he could have pressed home and routed them. Instead, Gall’s Burned Tears would arrive, or Wickans, or those damned marines, and the desert warriors would be the ones fleeing. Out into the night, pursued by horse warriors as skilled and tenacious as Leoman’s own.
Seven hundred or so remained—they’d had to leave so many wounded behind, found and butchered by the Khundryl Burned Tears, with various body parts collected as trophies.
Leoman faced forward on his saddle once more. ‘We are done.’
Corabb nodded. The Malazan army would reach the Whirlwind Wall by dusk. ‘Perhaps her otataral will fail,’ he offered. ‘Perhaps the goddess will destroy them all this very night.’
The lines bracketing Leoman’s blue eyes deepened as he narrowed his gaze on the advancing legions. ‘I think not. There is nothing pure in the Whirlwind’s sorcery, Corabb. No, there will be a battle, at the very edge of the oasis. Korbolo Dom will command the Army of the Apocalypse. And you and I, and likely Mathok, shall find ourselves a suitable vantage point…to watch.’
Corabb leaned to one side and spat.
‘Our war is done,’ Leoman finished, collecting his reins.
‘Korbolo Dom will need us,’ Corabb asserted.
‘If he does, then we have lost.’
They urged their weary horses into motion, and rode through the Whirlwind Wall.
He could ride at a canter for half a day, dropping the Jhag horse into a head-dipping, loping gait for the span of a bell, then resume the canter until dusk. Havok was a beast unlike any other he had known, including his namesake. He had ridden close enough to the north side of Ugarat to see watchers on the wall, and indeed they had sent out a score of horse warriors to contest his crossing the broad stone bridge spanning the river—riders who should have reached it long before he did.
But Havok had understood what was needed, and canter stretched out into gallop, neck reaching forward, and they arrived fifty strides ahead of the pursuing warriors. Foot traffic on the bridge scattered from their path, and its span was wide enough to permit easy passage around the carts and wagons. Broad as the Ugarat River was, they reached the other side within a dozen heartbeats, the thunder of Havok’s hoofs changing in timbre from stone to hard-packed earth as they rode out into the Ugarat Odhan.
Distance seemed to lose relevance to Karsa Orlong. Havok carried him effortlessly. There was no need for a saddle, and the single rein looped around the stallion’s neck was all he needed to guide the beast. Nor did the Teblor hobble the horse for the night, instead leaving him free to graze on the vast sweeps of grass stretching out on all sides.
The northern part of the Ugarat Odhan had narrowed between the inward curl of the two major rivers—the Ugarat and the other Karsa recalled as being named either Mersin or Thalas. A spine of hills had run north–south, dividing the two rivers, their summits and slopes hard-packed by the seasonal migration of bhederin over thousands of years. Those herds were gone, though their bones remained where predators and hunters had felled them, and the land was used now as occasional pasture, sparsely populated and that only in the wet season.
In the week it took to cross those hills, Karsa saw naught but signs of shepherd camps and boundary cairns, and the only grazing creatures were antelope and a species of large deer that fed only at night, spending days bedded down in low areas thick with tall, yellow grasses. Easily flushed then run down to provide Karsa with an occasional feast.
The Mersin River was shallow, almost dried up this late in the dry season. Fording it, he had then ridden northeast, coming along the trails skirting the south flanks of the Thalas Mountains, then eastward, to the city of Lato Revae, on the very edge of the Holy Desert.
He traversed the road south of the city’s wall at night, avoiding all contact, and reached the pass that led into Raraku at dawn the following day.
A pervasive urgency was driving him on. He was unable to explain the desire in his own mind, yet did not question it. He had been gone a long time, and though he did not believe the battle in Raraku had occurred, he sensed it was imminent.
And Karsa wanted to be there. Not to kill Malazans, but to guard Leoman’s back. But there was a darker truth, he well knew. The battle would be a day of chaos, and Karsa Orlong meant to add to it. Sha’ik or no Sha’ik, there are those in her camp who deserve only death. And I shall deliver it. He did not bother conjuring a list of reasons, of insults delivered, contempt unveiled, crimes committed. He had been indifferent for long enough, indifferent to so many things. He had reined in his spirit’s greatest strengths, among them his need to make judgements, and act decisively upon them in true Teblor fashion.
I have tolerated the deceitful and the malicious for long enough. My sword shall now answer them.
The Toblakai warrior was even less interested in creating a list of names, since names invited vows, and he had had enough of vows. No, he would kill as the mood took him.
He looked forward to his homecoming.
Provided he arrived in time.
Descending the slopes leading down into the Holy Desert, he was relieved to see, far to the north and east, the red crest of fury that was the Whirlwind Wall. Only days away, now.
He smiled at that distant anger, for he understood it. Constrained—chained—for so long, the goddess would soon unleash her wrath. He sensed her hunger, as palpable as that of the twin souls within his sword. The blood of deer was too thin.
He reined in Havok at an old camp near the edge of a salt flat. The slopes behind him would provide the last forage and water for the horse until just this side of the Whirlwind Wall, so he would spend time here bundling grasses for the journey, as well as refilling the waterskins from the spring ten paces from the camp.
He built a fire using the last of the bhederin dung from the Jhag Odhan—something he did only rarely—and, following a meal, opened the pack containing the ruined T’lan Imass and dragged the remnants out for the first time.
‘You are impatient to get rid of me?’ ’Siballe asked in a dry, rasping voice.
He grunted, staring down at the creature. ‘We’ve travelled far, Unfound. It has been a long time since I last looked upon you.’
‘Then why do you choose to look upon me now, Karsa Orlong?’
‘I do not know. I regret it already.’
‘I have seen the sun’s light through the weave of the fabric. Preferable to darkness.’
‘Why should what you prefer interest me?’
‘Because, Karsa Orlong, we are within the same House. The House of Chains. Our master—’
‘I have no master,’ the Teblor growled.
‘As he would have it,’ ’Siballe replied. ‘The Crippled God does not expect you to kneel. He issues no commands to his Mortal Sword, his Knight of Chains—for that is what you are, the role for which you have been shaped from the very beginning.’
‘I am not in this House of Chains, T’lan Imass. Nor will I accept another false god.’
‘He is not false, Karsa Orlong.’
‘As false as you,’ the warrior said, baring his teeth. ‘Let him rise before me and my sword will speak for me. You say I have been shaped. Then there is much to which he must give answer.’
‘The gods chained him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They chained him, Karsa Orlong, to dead ground. He is broken. In eternal pain. He has been twisted by captivity and now knows only suffering.’
‘Then I shall break his chains—’
‘I am pleased—’
‘And then kill him.’
Karsa grabbed the shattered T’lan Imass by its lone arm and stuffed it back into the pack. Then rose.
Great tasks lay ahead. The notion was satisfying.
A House is just another prison. And I have had enough of prisons. Raise walls around me, and I will knock them down.
Doubt my words, Crippled God, to your regret…
Chapter Twenty-two
Otataral, I believe, was born of sorcery. If we hold that magic feeds on hidden energies, then it follows that there are limits to those energies. Sufficient unveiling of power that subsequently cascades out of control could well drain those life-forces dry.
Further, it is said that the Elder warrens resist the deadening effect of otataral, suggesting that the world’s levels of energy are profoundly multilayered. One need only contemplate the life energy of corporeal flesh, compared to the undeniable energy within an inanimate object, such as rock. Careless examination might suggest that the former is alive, whilst the latter is not. In this manner, perhaps otataral is not quite as negating as it would first appear…
MUSINGS ON THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE WORLD
TRYRSSAN OF MOTT
The 9th, 11th and 12th squads, medium infantry, had been attached to the marines of the 9th Company. There were rumours, as well, that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd squads—the heavy infantry with their oversized muscles and sloping brows—would soon join them to form a discrete fighting unit.
None from the newly arrived squads were entirely strangers to Strings. He had made a point of learning names and memorizing faces throughout the 9th Company.
Footsore and weary from interrupted nights, the sergeant and his squad were sprawled around a cookfire, lulled by the incessant roar of the Whirlwind Wall a thousand paces north of the encamped army. Even rage could numb, it seemed.
Sergeant Balm of the 9th squad strode over after directing his soldiers into their new camp. Tall and wide-shouldered, the Dal Honese had impressed Strings with his cool indifference to pressure. Balm’s squad had already done its share of fighting, and the names of Corporal Deadsmell, Throatslitter, Widdershins, Galt and Lobe were already among the tales travelling through the legion. The same was true of some from the other two squads. Moak, Burnt and Stacker. Thom Tissy, Tulip, Ramp and Able.
The heavy infantry were yet to wet their swords, but Strings had been impressed with their discipline—easier with slope-brows, of course. Tell ’em to stand firm and they take root down to the bedrock. A few of them were wandering in, he noted. Flashwit, Bowl, Shortnose and Uru Hela. Mean-looking one and all.
Sergeant Balm squatted down. ‘You’re the one named Strings, aren’t you? Heard it’s not your real name.’
Strings raised his brows. ‘And “Balm” is?’
The dark-skinned young man frowned, his heavy eyebrows meeting as he did so. ‘Why, yes, it is.’
Strings glanced over at another soldier from the 9th squad, a man standing nearby looking as if he wanted to kill something. ‘And what about him? What’s his name again, Throatslitter? Did his ma decide on that for her little one, do you think?’
‘Can’t say,’ Balm replied. ‘Give a toddler a knife and who knows what’ll happen.’
Strings studied the man for a moment, then grunted. ‘You wanted to see me about something?’
Balm shrugged. ‘Not really. Sort of. What do you think of the captain’s new units? Seems a little late to make changes like this…’
‘It’s not that new, actually. Greymane’s legions are sometimes set up in the same manner. In any case, our new Fist has approved it.’
‘Keneb. Not sure about him.’
‘And you are about our fresh-faced captain?’
‘Aye, I am. He’s nobleborn, is Ranal. Enough said.’
‘Meaning?’
Balm looked away, started tracking a distant bird in flight. ‘Oh, only that he’s likely to get us all killed.’
Ah. ‘Speak louder, not everyone heard that opinion.’
‘Don’t need to, Strings. They share it.’
‘Sharing it ain’t the same as saying it.’
Gesler, Borduke and the sergeants from the 11th and 12th squads came over and muttered introductions went round the group. Moak, of the 11th, was Falari, copper-haired and bearded like Strings. He’d taken a lance down his back, from shoulder to tailbone, and, despite the healer’s efforts, was clearly struggling with badly knitted muscles. The 12th’s sergeant, Thom Tissy, was squat, with a face that might be handsome to a female toad, his cheeks pocked and the backs of his hands covered in warts. He was, the others saw when he removed his helm, virtually hairless.
Moak squinted at Strings for a long moment, as if seeking to conjure recognition, then he drew out a fish spine from his belt pouch and began picking his teeth. ‘Anybody else hear about that killer soldier? Heavy infantry, not sure what company, not even sure what legion. Named Neffarias Bredd. I heard he killed eighteen raiders all in one night.’
Strings lifted his gaze to meet Gesler’s, but neither man’s expression changed.
‘I heard it was eighteen one night, thirteen the next,’ Thom Tissy said. ‘We’ll have to ask the slope-brows when they show.’
