The Malazan Empire, page 542
‘Any more?’
‘Two, and I don’t like these ones at all. Here, Life Slayer…’
‘Jaghut?’
‘Half-Jaghut,’ Fiddler said in a dull voice. ‘I know who this is – the horn bow, the single-edged sword. Life Slayer is Icarium. And his protector, Mappo Runt, is nowhere in sight.’
‘Never mind all that,’ Stormy said. ‘What’s the last card?’
‘Icarium’s counterpoint, of sorts. Death Slayer.’
‘Who in the Abyss is that supposed to be? That’s impossible.’
A sour grunt from Fiddler, then he said, ‘Who? Well, let’s see. Squalid hut of skins and sticks, brazier coughing out smoke, a hooded thing inside the hut, broken limbed, shackles sunk into the earth. Now, who might that be?’
‘That’s impossible,’ Gesler said, echoing Stormy’s assertion. ‘He can’t be two things at once!’
‘Why not?’ Fiddler said, then sighed. ‘That’s it. Now, Stormy, what’s lit that fire in your eyes?’
‘I know who made these cards.’
‘Really?’ Fiddler sounded unconvinced. ‘And how did you come by that?’
‘The Guardians card, something about the stonework on the bridge. Then those last two, the skulls – I got a damned good look at Faradan Sort’s medal. So’s I could sew the like, you see.’
There was a long, long silence.
And Bottle stared, unseeing, as implications settled in his mind – settled momentarily, then burst up and out, like dust-devils, one after another. The Adjunct wants that Deck of Dragons in Fiddler’s hands. And either she or T’amber – or maybe Nether and Nil, or someone – is boiling over with arcane knowledge, and isn’t afraid to use it. Now, Fid, he never lays a field with those cards. No. He makes up games.
The Adjunct knows something. Just like she knew about the ghosts at Raraku…and the flood. But she carries an otataral sword. And the two Wickans are nothing like they once were, or so goes the consensus. It must be T’amber.
What awaits us?
Is this what’s got Quick Ben and the others so rattled?
What if—
‘Something just nudged my foot – what? Is that a rat? Right under our table?’
‘Ain’t no rats on the Silanda, Stormy—’
‘I’m telling you, Ges – there!’
Fiddler swore, then said, ‘That’s Bottle’s rat! Get it!’
‘After it!’
Skidding chairs, the crash of crockery, grunts and stamping boots.
‘It’s getting away!’
There were so many places, Bottle knew, on a ship, where only a rat could go. Y’Ghatan made her escape, despite all the cursing and thumping.
Moments later, Bottle saw Fiddler appear on deck amidships – the soldier looked away a moment before the sergeant’s searching gaze found him, and Bottle listened – staring out to sea – as the man, pushing past lounging soldiers, approached.
Thump thump thump up the steps to the foredeck.
‘Bottle!’
Blinking, he looked over. ‘Sergeant?’
‘Oh no I ain’t fooled – you was spying! Listening in!’
Bottle gestured over at Koryk and Tarr, who had looked up from their game and were now staring. ‘Ask them. I’ve been sitting here, not doing a thing, for more than a bell. Ask them.’
‘Your rat!’
‘Her? I lost track of her last night, Sergeant. Haven’t bothered trying to hunt her down since – what would be the point? She’s not going anywhere, not with her pups to take care of.’
Gesler, Stormy and Balm were now crowding up behind Fiddler, who looked ready to rip off his own stubbly beard in frustration.
‘If you’re lying…’ Fiddler hissed.
‘Of course he’s lying,’ Balm said. ‘If I was him, I’d be lying right now, too.’
‘Well, Sergeant Balm,’ Bottle said, ‘you’re not me, and that is the crucial difference. Because I happen to be telling the truth.’
With a snarl, Fiddler turned round and pushed his way back down to the mid deck. A moment later the others followed, Balm casting one last glare at Bottle – as if only now comprehending that he’d just been insulted.
A low snort from Koryk after they’d left. ‘Bottle, I happened to glance up a while back – before Fiddler came out – and, Hood take me, there must have been fifty expressions crossing your face, one after the other.’
‘Really?’ Bottle asked mildly. ‘Probably clouds passing the sun, Koryk.’
Tarr said, ‘Your rat still has those pups? You must’ve carried them on the march, then. If I’d been the one carrying them, I would’ve eaten them one by one. Pop into the mouth, crunch, chew. Sweet and delicious.’
‘Well, it was me, not you, wasn’t it? Why does everyone want to be me, anyway?’
‘We don’t,’ Tarr said, returning to study the game. ‘We’re just all trying to tell you we think you’re a raving idiot, Bottle.’
Bottle grunted. ‘All right. Then, I suppose, you two aren’t interested in what they were talking about in that cabin just a little while ago.’
‘Get over here,’ Koryk said in a growl. ‘Watch us play, and start talking, Bottle, else we go and tell the sergeant.’
‘No thanks,’ Bottle said, stretching his arms. ‘I think I’m in need of a nap. Maybe later. Besides, that game bores me.’
‘You think we won’t tell Fiddler?’
‘Of course you won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because then this would be the last time – the last time ever – you got any inside information from me.’
‘You lying, snivelling, snake of a bastard—’
‘Now now,’ Bottle said, ‘be nice.’
‘You’re getting worse than Smiles,’ Koryk said.
‘Smiles?’ Bottle paused at the steps. ‘Where is she, by the way?’
‘Mooning away with Corabb, I expect,’ Tarr said.
Really? ‘She shouldn’t do that.’
‘Why?’
‘Corabb’s luck doesn’t necessarily extend to people around him, that’s why.’
‘What does that mean?’
It means I talk too much. ‘Never mind.’
Koryk called out, ‘They’ll get that rat, you know, Bottle! Sooner or later.’
Nobody’s thinking straight around here. Gods, Koryk, you still think those pups are little helpless pinkies. Alas, they are all now quite capable of getting around all by themselves. So, I haven’t got just one extra set of eyes and ears, friends. No. There’s Baby Koryk, Baby Smiles, Baby Tarr, Baby…oh, you know the rest…
He was halfway to the hatch when the alarms sounded, drifting like demonic cries across the swollen waves, and on the wind there arrived a scent…no, a stench.
Hood take me, I hate not knowing. Kalam swung himself up into the rigging, ignoring the pitching and swaying as the Froth Wolf heeled hard about on a new course, northeast, towards the gap that had – through incompetence or carelessness – opened between two dromons of the escort. As the assassin quickly worked his way upward, he caught momentary glimpses of the foreign ships that had appeared just outside that gap. Sails that might have been black, once, but were now grey, bleached by sun and salt.
Amidst the sudden confusion of signals and alarms, one truth was becomingly appallingly evident: they had sailed into an ambush. Ships to the north, forming an arc with killing lanes between each one. Another crescent, this one bulging towards the Malazans, was fast approaching before the wind from the northeast. Whilst another line of ships formed a bristling barrier to the south, from the shallows along the coast to the west, then out in a saw-toothed formation eastward until the arc curled north.
Our escorts are woefully outnumbered. Transports loaded down with soldiers, like bleating sheep trapped in a slaughter pen.
Kalam stopped climbing. He had seen enough. Whoever they are, they’ve got us in their jaws. He began making his way down once more, an effort almost as perilous as had been the ascent. Below, figures were scrambling about on the decks, sailors and marines, officers shouting back and forth.
The Adjunct’s flagship, flanked still to starboard by the Silanda, was tacking a course towards that gap. It was clear that Tavore meant to engage that closing crescent. In truth, they had little choice. With the wind behind those attackers, they could drive like a spear-point into the midst of the cumbersome transports. Admiral Nok was commanding the lead escorts to the north, and they would have to seek to push through the enemy blocking the way, with as many of the transports following as were able – but all the enemy ships have to do is drive them into the coast, onto whatever uncharted reefs lurk in the shallows.
Kalam dropped the last distance to the deck, landed in a crouch. He heard more shouts from somewhere far above as he made his way forward. Positioned near the pitching prow, the Adjunct and Quick Ben stood side by side, the wind whipping at Tavore’s cloak. The High Mage glanced over as Kalam reached them.
‘They’ve shortened their sails, drawn up or whatever it is sailors call slowing down.’
‘Now why would they do that?’ Kalam asked. ‘That makes no sense. Those bastards should be driving hard straight at us.’
Quick Ben nodded, but said nothing.
The assassin glanced over at the Adjunct, but of her state of mind as she stared at the opposing line of ships he could sense nothing. ‘Adjunct,’ he said, ‘perhaps you should strap on your sword.’
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Something is happening.’
He followed her gaze.
‘Gods below, what is that?’
On the Silanda, Sergeant Gesler had made use of the bone whistle, and now banks of oars swept out and back with steady indifference to the heaving swells, and the ship groaned with each surge, easily keeping pace with the Adjunct’s dromon. The squads had finished reefing the sails and were now amidships, readying armour and weapons.
Fiddler crouched over a wooden crate, trying to quell his ever-present nausea – gods, I hate the sea, the damned back and forth and up and down. No, when I die I want my feet to be dry. That and nothing more. No other stipulations. Just dry feet, dammit – as he worked the straps loose and lifted the lid. He stared down at the Moranth munitions nestled in their beds of padding. ‘Who can throw?’ he demanded, glaring over at his squad, then something cold slithered in his gut.
‘I can,’ both Koryk and Smiles said.
‘Why ask?’ said Cuttle.
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas sat nearby, knees drawn up, too sick to move, much less respond to Fiddler’s question.
Tarr said, shrugging, ‘If it’s right in front of me, maybe I can hit it, Sergeant.’
But Fiddler barely heard any of this – his eyes were fixed on Bottle, who stood, motionless, staring at the enemy line of ships. ‘Bottle? What is it?’
An ashen face turned to regard him. ‘It’s bad, Sergeant. They’re…conjuring.’
Samar Dev shrank away until hard, insensate wood pressed against her back. Before her, to either side of the main mast, stood four Tiste Edur, from whom burgeoned crackling, savage sorcery, whipping like chains between them, fulminating with blooms and gouts of grey flames – and, beyond the rocking prow, a tumbling wave was rising, thrashing as if held taut, lifting skyward—
Bristling chains of power snapped out from the four warlocks, arcing left and right, out to conjoin with identical kin from the ships to either side of Hanradi Khalag’s command ship, and then onward to other ships, one after another, and the air Samar Dev drew into her lungs seemed dead, some essential necessity utterly destroyed. She gasped, sank down to the deck, drawing up her knees. A cough, then trembles racked through her in waves—
Sudden air, life flooding her lungs – someone stood to her left. She looked over, then up.
Karsa Orlong, motionless, staring at the billowing, surging wall of magic. ‘What is this?’ he demanded.
‘Elder,’ she said in a ragged voice. ‘They mean to destroy them. They mean to tear ten thousand souls and more…into pieces.’
‘Who is the enemy?’
Karsa, what is this breath of life you deliver?
‘The Malazan Imperial Fleet,’ Samar heard the Taxilian answer, and she saw that he had appeared on deck, along with Feather Witch and the Preda, Hanradi Khalag, and all were staring upward at the terrible, chained storm of power.
The Toblakai crossed his arms. ‘Malazans,’ he said. ‘They are not my enemy.’
In a harsh, halting accent, Hanradi Khalag turned to Karsa Orlong and said, ‘Are they Tiste Edur?’
The giant’s eyes thinned to slits as he continued studying the conjuration, from which there now came a growing roar, as of a million enraged voices. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Then,’ replied the Preda, ‘they are enemy.’
‘If you destroy these Malazans,’ Karsa said, ‘more of them will come after you.’
‘We do not fear.’
The Toblakai warrior finally glanced over at the Preda, and Samar Dev could read, with something fluttering inside her, his contempt. Yet he said nothing, simply turned about and crouched down at Samar Dev’s side.
She whispered, ‘You were going to call him a fool. I’m glad you didn’t – these Tiste Edur don’t manage criticism too well.’
‘Which makes them even bigger fools,’ the giant rumbled. ‘But we knew that, Samar Dev. They believe their Emperor can defeat me.’
‘Karsa—’
A strange chorus of cries erupted from the warlocks, and they all convulsed, as if some fiery hand had reached into their bodies, closed tight and cruel about their spines – Samar Dev’s eyes widened – this ritual, it twists them, oh – such pain—
The enormous wall lifted free of the sea’s suddenly becalmed surface. Rose higher, then higher still – and in the space beneath it, a horizontal strip mocking normality, the Malazan ships were visible, their sails awry, each one losing way as panic raced through the poor bastards – except for those two, in the lead, a dromon warship, and on its seaward flank, a black-hulled craft, its oars flashing to either side.
What?
Hanradi Khalag had stepped forward upon seeing that odd black ship, but from where Samar sat curled up she could not see his expression, only the back of his head – the suddenly taut posture of his tall form.
And then, something else began to happen…
The wall of magic was pulling free from the surface, drawing with it spouts of white, churning water that fragmented and fell away like toppling spears as the grey-shot, raging manifestation lifted ever higher. The roar of sound rolled forward, loud and fierce as a charging army.
The Adjunct’s voice was low, flat. ‘Quick Ben.’
‘Not warrens,’ the wizard replied, as if awed. ‘Elder. Not warrens. Holds, but shot through with Chaos, with rot—’
‘The Crippled God.’
Both the wizard and Kalam looked over at her.
‘You’re full of surprises, Adjunct,’ Quick Ben observed.
‘Can you answer it?’
‘Adjunct?’
‘This Elder sorcery, High Mage – can you answer it?’
The glance that Quick Ben cast at Kalam startled the assassin, yet it matched his reply perfectly: ‘If I cannot, Adjunct, then we are all dead.’
You bastard – you’ve got something—
‘You do not have long,’ the Adjunct said. ‘If you fail,’ she added as she turned away, ‘I have my sword.’
Kalam watched her make her way down the length of the ship. Then, heart pounding hard in his chest, he faced the tumbling, foaming conjuration that filled the north sky. ‘Quick, you ain’t got long here, you know – once she comes back with her sword—’
‘I doubt it’ll be enough,’ the wizard cut in. ‘Oh, maybe for this ship and this ship alone. As for everybody else, forget it.’
‘Then do something!’
And Quick Ben turned on Kalam a grin the assassin had seen before, hundreds of times, and that light in his eyes – so familiar, so—
The wizard spat on his hands and rubbed them together, facing the Elder sorcery once more. ‘They want to mess with Holds…so will I.’
Kalam bared his teeth. ‘You’ve got some nerve.’
‘What?’
‘“Full of surprises”, you said to her.’
‘Yes, well, best give me some room. It’s been a while. I may be a little…rusty.’ And he raised his arms.
So familiar…so…alarming.
On the Silanda four reaches to seaward, Bottle felt something jolt all his senses. His head whipped round, to fix his eyes on the forecastle of the Froth Wolf. Quick Ben, alone, standing tall at the prow, arms stretched out to the sides, like some damned offering—
—and around the High Mage, fire the colour of gold-flecked mud billowed awake, rushed outward, upward, fast – so fast, so fierce – gods take me – no, more patience, you fool! If they—
Whispering a prayer, Bottle flung all his will at the High Mage’s conjuration – slower, you fool. Slower! Here, deepen the hue, thicker, fling it out to the sides, it’s just a reverse mudslide, yes, all going back up the slope, flames like rain, tongues of gold nastiness, yes, like that—
No, stop fighting me, damn you. I don’t care how terrified you are – panic will ruin everything. Pay attention!
Suddenly, filling Bottle’s head, a scent…of fur. The soft brush of not-quite-human hands – and Bottle’s flailing efforts to quell Quick Ben’s manic enthusiasm all at once ceased to matter, as his will was brushed aside like a cobweb—
Kalam, crouched down on the forecastle’s wooden steps, watched as Quick Ben, legs spread wide, slowly lifted from the deck, as if some outside force had closed invisible hands on the front of his tunic, drawing him close, then giving him a shake.
‘What in Hood’s name—’
The magic rising in answer to that grey seething storm opposite was like a wall of earth, shot through with burning roots, churning and heaving and tumbling back into itself, its wild, explosive will bound tighter to something more powerful – and when he releases it, into that other one…Hood below, nobody’s going to survive this—
Hanradi Khalag had stared, frozen in place for a dozen heartbeats, as the wild chaos of Elder magic rose in appalling challenge to that of the Edur warlocks – to that of nearly a hundred Edur warlocks – and, Samar Dev realized as she stared at the lead Malazan dromon, all from that one man, that black-skinned man floating above the ship’s prow, his limbs spread wide.
