The Malazan Empire, page 363
Nothing was as it had been, and the Deragoth were made uneasy.
They had come to destroy.
But now hesitated.
With eyes fixed on the one who had arrived, who now stood before them, at the far end of the square.
Hesitate. Yes.
Karsa Orlong strode forward. He addressed them, his voice low and rumbling. ‘Urugal’s master had…ambitions,’ he said. ‘A dream of mastery. But now he understands better, and wants nothing to do with you.’ Then the Teblor smiled. ‘So I do.’
Both hounds stepped back, then moved to open more space between them.
Karsa smiled. You do not belong here. ‘You would let me pass?’ He continued on. And I have had my fill of strangers. ‘Do you remember the Toblakai, beasts? But they had been gentled. By civilization. By the soft trappings of foolish peace. So weakened that they could not stand before T’lan Imass, could not stand before Forkrul Assail and Jaghut. And now, they cannot stand before Nathii slavers.
‘An awakening was needed, friends. Remember the Toblakai, if it comforts you.’ He strode directly between the two hounds, as if he intended to accept their invitation to pass.
The hounds attacked.
As he knew they would.
Karsa dropped into a crouch that leaned far to his left, as he brought up the massive stone sword over his head, point sliding left—directly into the path of the hound charging from that side.
Striking it in the chest.
The heavy sternum cracked but did not shatter, and the rippled blade edge scored a bloody path down along the ribs.
Karsa’s crouch then exploded after his weapon, his legs driving his shoulder forward and up to hammer the beast at the level of its collar bones.
Jaws snapped above the back of the Toblakai’s neck, then the impact jolted through warrior and hound both.
And the latter’s sword-gouged ribs splintered.
Jaws closed around Karsa’s right leg just below the knee.
And he was lifted clear of the ground. Then thrown to one side, though the jaws did not loosen. The wrench snapped the sword from his hands.
Molars ground against bone, incisors shredded muscle. The second hound closed on Karsa, savagely shaking the leg in its jaws.
The first hound staggered away a few paces, left foreleg dragging, blood spilling out beneath it.
Karsa made no effort to pull away from the beast seeking to chew off his lower leg. Instead, he pushed himself upright on his one free leg and lunged into the hound. Arms wrapping around the rippling body behind the shoulders.
With a bellow, the Teblor lifted the hound. Hind legs kicked in wild panic, but he was already wrenching the entire beast over.
The jaws were torn loose even as Karsa drove the creature down onto its back.
Flagstones cracked with explosions of dust.
The Teblor then sank to his knees, straddling the writhing hound, and closed both hands around its throat.
A snarling frenzy answered him.
Canines ripped into his forearms, the jaws gnawed frantically, chewing free chunks of skin and flesh.
Karsa released one hand and pushed it against the hound’s lower jaw.
Muscles contracted as two unhuman strengths collided.
Legs scored Karsa’s body, the claws tearing through leathers and into flesh, but the Teblor continued pushing. Harder and harder, his other hand edging up to join in the effort.
The kicks went wild. Panicked.
Karsa both felt and heard a grinding pop, then the flat head of the hound cracked against the flagstones.
A strange keening sound twisted out from the throat.
And the warrior pulled his right hand back, closed it into a fist, and drove it down into the animal’s throat.
Crushing trachea.
The legs spasmed and went limp.
With a roar, Karsa reared upright, dragging the hound by its neck, then hammering it down once more. A loud snap, a spray of blood and saliva.
He straightened, shook himself, his mane raining blood and sweat, then swung his gaze to where the other hound had been.
Only a blood trail remained.
Karsa staggered over to his sword, retrieved it, then set off on that glistening path.
Kalam and Quick Ben slowly rose from behind the wall and stared in silence after the giant warrior.
Shadows had begun swarming in the darkness. They gathered like capemoths to the carcass of the Deragoth, then sped away again as if in terror.
Kalam rolled his shoulders, then, long-knives in his hands, he approached the hound.
Quick Ben followed.
They studied the mangled carcass.
‘Wizard…’
‘Aye?’
‘Let’s drop off the Napan and get out of here.’
‘A brilliant plan.’
‘I just thought it up.’
‘I like it very much. Well done, Kalam.’
‘Like I’ve always told you, Quick, I ain’t just a pretty face.’
The two swung about and, ignoring the shadows pouring out of the burgeoning shattered warren of Kurald Emurlahn, returned to where they had left Korbolo Dom.
‘Friend?’
Heboric stared at the four-eyed, squat demon that had leapt onto the path in front of him. ‘If we’d met, demon, I’m sure I would have remembered it.’
‘Helpful explanation. Brother to L’oric. He lies in clearing twelve paces to your left. Hesitant revision. Fifteen paces. Your legs are nearly as short as mine.’
‘Take me to him.’
The demon did not move. ‘Friend?’
‘More or less. We share certain flaws.’
The creature shrugged. ‘With reservations. Follow.’
Heboric set off into the petrified forest after the shambling demon, his smile broadening as it prattled on.
‘A priest with the hands of a tiger. Sometimes. Other times, human hands glowing depthless green. Impressed. Those tattoos, very fine indeed. Musing. I would have trouble tearing out your throat, I think. Even driven by hunger, as I always am. Thoughtful. A fell night, this one. Ghosts, assassins, warrens, silent battles. Does no-one in this world ever sleep?’
They stumbled into a small clearing.
L’oric’s armour was stained with drying blood, but he looked well enough, seated cross-legged, his eyes closed, his breathing steady. On the dusty ground before him lay a spread of the Deck of Dragons.
Grunting, Heboric settled down opposite the High Mage. ‘Didn’t know you played with those.’
‘I never do,’ L’oric replied in a murmur. ‘Play, that is. A Master has come to the Deck, and that Master has just sanctioned the House of Chains.’
Heboric’s eyes widened. Then narrowed, and he slowly nodded. ‘Let the gods rail, he or she had to do just that.’
‘I know. The Crippled God is now as bound as is every other god.’
‘In the game, aye, after so long outside it. I wonder if he’ll one day come to regret his gambit.’
‘He seeks this fragment of Kurald Emurlahn, and is poised to strike, though his chances are less now than they were at sunset.’
‘How so?’
‘Bidithal is dead.’
‘Good. Who?’
‘Toblakai.’
‘Oh. Not good.’
‘Yet Toblakai has become, I believe, the Knight in the House of Chains.’
‘That is damned unfortunate…for the Crippled God. Toblakai will kneel to no-one. He cannot afford to. He will defy all prediction—’
‘He has already displayed that penchant this night, Ghost Hands, to the possible ruination of us all. Still, at the same time, I have come to suspect he is our only hope.’ L’oric opened his eyes and stared across at Heboric. ‘Two Hounds of Darkness arrived a short while ago—I could sense their presence, though fitfully, but could get no closer. Otataral, and the very darkness that shrouds them.’
‘And why should Toblakai step into their path? Never mind, I can answer that myself. Because he’s Toblakai.’
‘Aye. And I believe he has already done so.’
‘And?’
‘And now, I believe, but one Deragoth remains alive.’
‘Gods forbid,’ Heboric breathed.
‘Toblakai even now pursues it.’
‘Tell me, what brought the hounds here? What or who has Toblakai just thwarted?’
‘The cards are ambivalent on that, Destriant. Perhaps the answer is yet to be decided.’
‘Relieved to hear some things remain so, truth be told.’
‘Ghost. Hands. Get Felisin away from this place. Greyfrog here will accompany you.’
‘And you?’
‘I must go to Sha’ik. No, say nothing until I finish. I know that you and she were once close—perhaps not in a pleasing manner, but close none the less. But that mortal child is soon to be no more. The goddess is about to devour her soul even as we speak—and once that is done, there shall be no return. The young Malazan girl you once knew will have ceased to exist. Thus, when I go to Sha’ik, I go not to the child, but to the goddess.’
‘But why? Are you truly loyal to the notion of apocalypse? Of chaos and destruction?’
‘No. I have something else in mind. I must speak with the goddess—before she takes Sha’ik’s soul.’
Heboric stared at the High Mage for a long time, seeking to discern what L’oric sought from that vengeful, insane goddess.
‘There are two Felisins,’ L’oric then murmured, eyes half veiled. ‘Save the one you can, Heboric Light Touch.’
‘One day, L’oric,’ Heboric growled, ‘I will discover who you truly are.’
The High Mage smiled. ‘You will find this simple truth—I am a son who lives without hope of ever matching my father’s stride. That alone, in time, will explain all you need know of me. Go, Destriant. Guard her well.’
Ghosts pivoted, armour shedding red dust, and saluted as Karsa Orlong limped past. At least these ones, he reflected dully, weren’t shackled in chains.
The blood trail had led him into a maze of ruins, an unused section of the city notorious for its cellars and pitfalls and precariously leaning walls. He could smell the beast. It was close and, he suspected, cornered.
Or, more likely, it had decided to make a stand, in a place perfectly suited for an ambush.
If only the slow, steady patter of dripping blood had not given away its hiding place.
Karsa kept his gaze averted from that alleyway of inky shadows five paces ahead and to his right. He made his steps uncertain, uneven with pain and hesitation, not all of it feigned. The blood between his hands and the sword’s grip had grown sticky, but still threatened to betray his grasp on the weapon.
Shadows were shredding the darkness, as if the two elemental forces were at war, with the latter being driven back. Dawn, Karsa realized, was approaching.
He came opposite the alley.
And the hound charged.
Karsa leapt forward, twisting in mid-air to slash his sword two-handed, cleaving an arc into his wake.
The tip slashed hide, but the beast’s attack had already carried it past. It landed on one foreleg, which skidded out from under it. The hound fell onto one shoulder, then rolled right over.
Karsa scrambled back to his feet to face it.
The beast crouched, preparing to charge once again.
The horse that burst out of a side alley caught both hound and Toblakai by surprise. That the panicked animal had been galloping blind was made obvious as it collided with the hound.
There had been two riders on the horse. And both were thrown from the saddle, straight over the hound.
The impact had driven the hound down beneath the wildly stamping hoofs. Somehow, the horse stayed upright, staggering clear with heavy snorts as if seeking to draw breath into stunned lungs. Behind it, the hound’s claws gouged the cobbles as it struggled to right itself.
Snarling, Karsa lunged forward and plunged the sword’s point into the beast’s neck.
It shrieked, surged towards the Toblakai.
Karsa leapt away, dragging his sword after him.
Blood gushing from the puncture in its throat, the hound rose up on its three legs, weaving, head swaying as it coughed red spume onto the stones.
A figure darted out from the shadows. The spiked ball at the end of a flail hissed through the air, and thundered into the hound’s head. A second followed, hammering down from above to audibly crack the beast’s thick skull.
Karsa stepped forward. An overhead two-handed swing finally drove the hound from its wobbling legs.
Side by side, Leoman and Karsa closed in to finish it. A dozen blows later and the hound was dead.
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas then stumbled into view, a broken sword in his hand.
Karsa wiped the gore from his blade then glared at Leoman. ‘I did not need your help,’ he growled.
Leoman grinned. ‘But I need yours.’
Pearl staggered from the trench, clambering over sprawled corpses. Since his rather elegant assassination of Henaras, things had gone decidedly downhill—steeper than that trench behind me. Countless guards, then the ghostly army whose weapons were anything but illusory. His head still ached from Lostara’s kiss—damned woman, just when I thought I’d figured her out…
He’d been cut and slashed at all the way through that damned camp, and now stumbled half blind towards the ruins.
The darkness was being torn apart on all sides. Kurald Emurlahn was opening like death’s own flower, with the oasis at its dark heart. Beneath the sorcerous pressure of that manifestation, it was all he could do to pitch headlong down the trail.
So long as Lostara stayed put, they might well salvage something out of all this.
He came to the edge and paused, studying the pit where he’d left her. No movement. She was either staying low or had left. He padded forward.
I despise nights like these. Nothing goes as planned—
Something hard struck him in the side of his head. Stunned, he fell and lay unmoving, his face pressed against the cold, gritty ground.
A voice rumbled above him. ‘That was for Malaz City. Even so, you still owe me one.’
‘After Henaras?’ Pearl mumbled, his words puffing up tiny clouds of dust. ‘You should be owing me one.’
‘Her? Not worth counting.’
Something thumped heavily to the ground beside Pearl. That then groaned.
‘All right,’ the Claw sighed—more dust, a miniature Whirlwind—‘I owe you one, then.’
‘Glad we’re agreed. Now, make some more noises. Your lass over there’s bound to take a look…eventually.’
Pearl listened to the footfalls pad away. Two sets. The wizard was in no mood to talk, I suppose.
To me, that is.
I believe I am sorely humbled.
Beside him, the trussed shape groaned again.
Despite himself, Pearl smiled.
To the east, the sky paled.
And this night was done.
Chapter Twenty-six
On this day, Raraku rises.
XXXIV. II.1.81 ‘WORDS OF THE PROPHECY’
THE BOOK OF DRYJHNA THE APOCALYPTIC
The whirlwind goddess had once been a raging storm of wind and sand. A wall surrounding the young woman who had once been Felisin of House Paran, and who had become Sha’ik, Chosen One and supreme ruler of the Army of the Apocalypse.
Felisin had been her mother’s name. She had then made it her adopted daughter’s name. Yet she herself had lost it. Occasionally, however, in the deepest hours of night, in the heart of an impenetrable silence of her own making, she caught a glimpse of that girl. As she once had been, the smeared reflection from a polished mirror. Round-cheeked and flushed, a wide smile and bright eyes. A child with a brother who adored her, who would toss her about on one knee as if it was a bucking horse, and her squeals of fear and delight would fill the chamber.
Her mother had been gifted with visions. This was well known. A respected truth. And that mother’s youngest daughter had dreamed that one day she too would find that talent within her.
But that gift only came with the goddess, with this spiteful, horrific creature whose soul was far more parched and withered than any desert. And the visions that assailed Sha’ik were murky, fraught things. They were, she had come to realize, not born of any talent or gift. They were the conjurings of fear.
A goddess’s fear.
And now the Whirlwind Wall had closed, retracted, had drawn in from the outside world to rage beneath Sha’ik’s sun-darkened skin, along her veins and arteries, careening wild and deafening in her mind.
Oh, there was power there. Bitter with age, bilious with malice. And whatever fuelled it bore the sour taste of betrayal. A heart-piercing, very personal betrayal. Something that should have healed, that should have numbed beneath thick, tough scar tissue. Spiteful pleasure had kept the wound open, had fed its festering heat, until hate was all that was left. Hate for…someone, a hate so ancient it no longer possessed a face.
In moments of cold reason, Sha’ik saw it for what it was. Insane, raised to such extremity that she understood that whatever had been the crime against the goddess, whatever the source of the betrayal, it had not earned such a brutal reaction. The proportions had begun wrong. From the very start. Leading her to suspect that the proclivity for madness had already existed, dark flaws marring the soul that would one day claw its way into ascendancy.
Step by step, we walk the most horrendous paths. Stride tottering along the edge of an unsuspected abyss. Companions see nothing amiss. The world seems a normal place. Step by step, no different from anyone else—not from the outside. Not even from the inside. Apart from that tautness, that whisper of panic. The vague confusion that threatens your balance.
Felisin, who was Sha’ik, had come to comprehend this.
For she had walked that same path.
Hatred, sweet as nectar.
I have walked into the abyss.
I am as mad as that goddess. And this is why she chose me, for we are kindred souls…
