The Malazan Empire, page 674
The captain’s comment was succinct. ‘Shit.’ Then she added, ‘Go on ahead, Beak – get ’em ready to move!’
‘Yes sir!’
The problem with owls was that, even as far as birds went, they were profoundly stupid. Getting them to even so much as turn their damned heads was a struggle, no matter how tightly Bottle gripped their tiny squirming souls.
He was locked in such a battle at the moment, so far past the notion of sleep that it seemed it belonged exclusively to other people and would for ever remain beyond his reach.
But all at once it did not matter where the owl was looking, nor even where it wanted to look. Because there were figures moving across the land, through the copses, the tilled grounds, swarming the slopes of the old quarry pits and on the road and all its converging tracks. Hundreds, thousands. Moving quiet, weapons readied. And less than half a league behind Keneb’s column.
Bottle shook himself, eyes blinking rapidly as he refocused – the pitted wall of the tavern, plaster chipped where daggers had been thrown against it, the yellow runnels of leakage from the thatched roof above the common room. Around him, marines pulling on their gear. Someone, probably Hellian, spitting and gagging somewhere behind the bar.
One of the newly arrived marines appeared in front of him, pulling up a chair and sitting down. The Dal Honese mage, the one with the jungle still in his eyes.
‘Nep Furrow,’ he now growled. ‘Mimber me?’
‘Mimber what?’
‘Me!’
‘Yes. Nep Furrow. Like you just said. Listen, I’ve got no time to talk—’
A fluttering wave of one gnarled hand. ‘We’en know! Bit the Edur! We’en know all’at.’ A bent finger stabbed at Bottle. ‘Issn this. You. Used dup! An’thas be-ad! Be-ad! We all die! Cuzzin you!’
‘Oh, thanks for that, you chewed-up root! We weren’t taking the scenic leg like you bastards, you know. In fact, we only got this far because of me!’
‘Vlah! Iss th’feedle! The feedle orn your sergeant! Issn the song, yeseen – it ain’t done-done yeet. Ain’t yeet done-done! Hah!’
Bottle stared at the mage. ‘So this is what happens when you pick your nose but never put anything back, right?’
‘Pick’n back! Hee hee! Een so, Bauble, yeen the cause alla us dyin, s’long as yeen know.’
‘And what about the unfinished song?’
An elaborate shrug. ‘Oonoes when, eh? Oonoes?’
Then Fiddler was at the table. ‘Bottle, now’s not the time for a Hood-damned conversation. Out into the street and look awake, damn you – we’re all about to charge out of this village like a herd of bhederin.’
Yeah, and right over a cliff we go. ‘Wasn’t me started this conversation, Sergeant—’
‘Grab your gear, soldier.’
Koryk stood with the others of the squad, barring Bottle who clearly thought he was unique or something, and watched as the leading elements of the column appeared at the end of the main street, a darker mass amidst night’s last, stubborn grip. No-one on horses, he saw, which wasn’t too surprising. Food for Keneb and his tail-end company must have been hard to find, so horses went into the stew – there, a few left, but loaded down with gear. Soon there’d be stringy, lean meat to add flavour to the local grain that tasted the way goat shit smelled.
He could feel his heart thumping strong in his chest. Oh, there would be fighting today. The Edur to the west were rolling them up all right. And ahead, on this side of the great capital city, there’d be an army or two. Waiting just for us and isn’t that nice of ’em.
Fiddler loomed directly in front of Koryk and slapped the half-blood on the side of his helm. ‘Wake up, damn you!’
‘I was awake, Sergeant!’
But that was all right. Understandable, even, as Fiddler went down the line snapping at everyone. Aye, there’d been way too much drinking in this village and wits were anything but sharp. Of course, Koryk felt fine enough. He’d mostly slept when the others were draining the last casks of ale. Slept, aye, knowing what was coming.
The new marines from 3rd Company had provided some novelty but not for long. They’d taken the easy route and they knew it and now so did everyone else, and it gave them all a look in the eyes, one that said they still had something to prove and this little help-out here in this village hadn’t been nearly enough. Gonna have to dive across a few hundred more Edur, sweetie, before any of us but Smiles gives you a nod or two.
At the head of the column, which had now arrived, there was Fist Keneb and the sergeant, Thom Tissy, along with Captain Sort and her brainless mage, Beak.
Keneb eyed the squads then said, ‘Sergeants, to me, please.’
Koryk watched Fiddler, Hellian, Gesler, Badan Gruk and Primly all head over to gather in a half-circle in front of the Fist.
‘Typical,’ muttered Smiles beside him. ‘Now we all go up on report. Especially you, Koryk. You don’t think anybody’s forgotten you murdering that official in Malaz City – so they know you’re the one to watch for.’
‘Oh, be quiet,’ Koryk muttered. ‘They’re just deciding now which squad dies first.’
That shut her up quick enough.
‘You’ve all done damned well,’ Keneb said in a low voice, ‘but now the serious work begins.’
Gesler snorted. ‘Think we didn’t know that, Fist?’
‘Still in the habit of irritating your superiors, I see.’
Gesler flashed his typical grin. ‘How many you bring with you, sir, if I might ask? Because, you see, I’m starting to smell something and it’s a bad smell. We can handle two to one odds. Three to one, even. But I’ve got a feeling we’re about to find ourselves outnumbered what, ten to one? Twenty? Now, maybe you’ve brought us some more munitions, but unless you’ve got four or five wagons full hidden back of the column, it won’t be enough—’
‘That’s not our problem,’ Fiddler said, pulling a nit from his beard and cracking it between his teeth. ‘There’ll be mages and I know for a fact, Fist, that ours are used up. Even Bottle, and that’s saying a lot.’ Fiddler then scowled at Beak. ‘What in Hood’s name are you smiling about?’
Beak wilted, moved to hide behind Faradan Sort.
The captain seemed to bridle. ‘Listen, Fiddler, maybe you know nothing about this mage here, but I assure you he has combat magicks. Beak, can you hold your own in what’s to come?’
A low murmuring reply: ‘Yes sir. You’ll see. Everyone will because you’re all my friends and friends are important. The most important thing in the world. And I’ll show you.’
Fiddler winced and looked away, then squinted. ‘Shit, we’re losing the night.’
‘Form up for the march,’ Keneb ordered and damn, Fiddler observed, the Fist was looking old right now. ‘We’ll alternate to double-time every hundred paces – from what I understand, we don’t have very far to go.’
‘Until the way ahead is full of enemy,’ Gesler said. ‘Hope at least it’s within sight of Letheras. I’d like to see the damned walls before I feed the weeds.’
‘Enough of that, Sergeant. Dismissed.’
Fiddler didn’t respond to Gesler’s grin when they headed back to their squads.
‘Come on, Fid, all those talents of yours got to be all screaming the same thing right now, aren’t they?’
‘Aye, they’re all screaming at you to shut your damned mouth, Ges.’
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas had collected almost more weapons than he could carry. Four of the better spears, two javelins. A single-edged sword something like a scimitar; a nice long, straight Letherii longsword with a sharply tapered point, filed down from what had been a blunted end; two sticker knives and a brace of gutters as well. Strapped to his back was a Letherii shield, wood, leather and bronze. He also carried a crossbow and twenty-seven quarrels. And one sharper.
They were headed, he well knew, to their last stand, and it would be heroic. Glorious. It would be as it should have been with Leoman of the Flails. They would stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, until not one was left alive. And years from now, songs would be sung of this dawning day. And there would be, among the details, a tale of one soldier, wielding spears and javelins and swords and knives and heaps of bodies at his feet. A warrior who had come from Seven Cities, yes, from thousands of leagues away, to finally give the proper ending to the Great Uprising of his homeland. A rebel once more, in the outlawed, homeless Fourteenth Army who were now called the Bonehunters, and whose own bones would be hunted, yes, for their magical properties, and sold for stacks of gold in markets. Especially Corabb’s own skull, larger than all the others, once home to a vast brain filled with genius and other brilliant thoughts. A skull not even a king could afford, yes, especially with the sword blade or spear clove right through it as lasting memento to Corabb’s spectacular death, the last marine standing—
‘For Hood’s sake, Corabb,’ snapped Cuttle behind him, ‘I’m dodging more spear butts now than I will in a bell’s time! Get rid of some of them, will you?’
‘I cannot,’ Corabb replied. ‘I shall need them all.’
‘Now that doesn’t surprise me, the way you treat your weapons.’
‘There will be many enemy that need killing, yes.’
‘That Letherii shield is next to useless,’ Cuttle said. ‘You should know that by now, Corabb.’
‘When it breaks I shall find another.’
He so looked forward to the imminent battle. The screams, the shrieks of the dying, the shock of the enemy as it reeled back, repulsed again and again. The marines had earned it, oh yes. The fight they had all been waiting for, outside the very walls of Letheras – and the citizens would line them to watch, with wonder, with astonishment, with awe, as Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas unleashed such ferocity as to sear the souls of every witness…
Hellian was never drinking that stuff again. Imagine, sick, still drunk, thirsty and hallucinating all at once. Almost as bad as that night of the Paralt Festival in Kartool, with all those people wearing giant spider costumes and Hellian, in a screaming frenzy, trying to stamp on all of them.
Now, she was trudging at the head of her paltry squad in the grainy half-light of dawn, and from the snatches of conversation that penetrated her present state of disrepair she gathered that the Edur were right behind them, like ten thousand giant spiders with fangs that could shoot out and skewer innocent seagulls and terrified women. And even worse, this damned column was marching straight for a giant web eager to ensnare them all.
Meanwhile, there were the hallucinations. Her corporal splitting in two, for example. One here, one there, both talking at once but not the same thing and not even in the same voice. And what about that doe-eyed fool with the stupid name who was now always hovering close? Scab Breath? Skulldent? Whatever, she had ten years on him easy, maybe more, or that’s how it seemed since he had that smooth baby-skin – Babyskin? – face that made him look, gods, fourteen or so. All breathless with some bizarre story about being a prince and the last of a royal line and saving seeds to plant in perfect soil where cacti don’t grow and now he wanted…wanted what? She couldn’t be sure, but he was triggering all sorts of nasty thoughts in her head, above all an overwhelming desire to corrupt the boy so bad he’d never see straight ever again, just to prove that she wasn’t someone anybody messed with without getting all messed up themselves. So maybe it all came down to power. The power to crush innocence and that was something even a terrified woman could do, couldn’t she?
Passing through another village and oh, this wasn’t a good sign. It’d been systematically flattened. Every building nothing but rubble. Armies did things like that to remove cover, to eliminate the chance of establishing redoubts and all that sort of thing. No trees beyond, either, just a level stretch of ploughed fields with the hedgerows cut down to stumps and the crops all burnt to blackened stubble and already the morning sun was lancing deadly darts into her skull, forcing her to down a few mouthfuls of her dwindling supply of Falari rum from the transports.
Steadying her some, thank Hood.
Her corporal merged back into one, which was a good sign, and he was pointing ahead and talking about something—
‘What? Wait, Touchy Breath, wha’s that you’re saying?’
‘The rise opposite, Sergeant! See the army waiting for us? See it? Gods above, we’re finished! Thousands! No, worse than thousands—’
‘Be quiet! I can see ’em well enough—’
‘But you’re looking the wrong way!’
‘That’s no matter either way, Corporal. I still see ’em, don’t I? Now stop crowding me and go find Urb – got to keep ’im close to keep ’im alive, the clumsy fool.’
‘He won’t come, Sergeant.’
‘Wha’ you talkin’ ’bout?’
‘It’s Skulldeath, you see. He’s announced that he’s given his heart to you—’
‘His what? Listen, you go an’ tell Hearty Death that he can have his skull back cause I don’t wannit, but I’ll take his cock once we’re done killing all these bassards or maybe even before then if there’s a chance, but in the meantime, drag Urb here because I’m ’sponsible for ’im, you see, for letting’ ’im kick in that temple door.’
‘Sergeant, he won’t—’
‘How come your voice keeps changin’?’
‘So,’ said the commander of the Letherii forces arrayed along the ridge, ‘there they are. What do you judge, Sirryn Kanar? Under a thousand? I would believe so. All the way from the coast. Extraordinary.’
‘They have survived thus far,’ Sirryn said, scowling, ‘because they are unwilling to stand and fight.’
‘Rubbish,’ the veteran officer replied. ‘They fought the way they needed to, and they did it exceptionally well, as Hanradi and his Edur would attest. Under a thousand, by the Errant. What I could do with ten thousand such soldiers, Finadd. Pilott, Korshenn, Descent, T’roos, Isthmus – we could conquer them all. Two campaign seasons, no more than that.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Sirryn said, ‘we’re about to kill them all, sir.’
‘Yes, Finadd,’ the commander sighed. ‘So we are.’ He hesitated, then cast Sirryn an oddly sly glance. ‘I doubt there will be much opportunity to excessively bleed the Tiste Edur, Finadd. They have done their task, after all, and now need only dig in behind these Malazans – and when the poor fools break, as they will, they will be routing right into Hanradi’s Edur spears, and that will be the end of that.’
Sirryn Kanar shrugged. ‘I still do not understand how these Malazans could have believed a thousand of their soldiers would be enough to conquer our empire. Even with their explosives and such.’
‘You forget their formidable sorcery, Finadd.’
‘Formidable at stealth, at hiding them from our forces. Naught else. And now, such talents have no use at all. We see our enemy, sir, and they are exposed, and so they will die.’
‘Best we get on with it, then,’ the commander said, somewhat shortly, as he turned to gesture his mages forward.
Below, on the vast plain that would be the killing field for this invading army – if it could even be called that – the Malazan column began, with alacrity, reforming into a defensive circle. The commander grunted. ‘They hold to no illusions, Finadd, do they? They are finished and they know it. And so, there will be no rout, no retreat of any sort. Look at them! There they will stand, until none stand.’
Gathered now into their defensive circle, in very nearly the centre of the killing field, the force suddenly seemed pathetically small. The commander glanced at his seven mages, now arrayed at the very crest of the ridge and beginning the end of their ritual – which had been a week in the making. Then back to the distant huddle of Malazans. ‘Errant bless peace upon their souls,’ he whispered.
It was clear that Atri-Preda Bivatt, impatient as she no doubt was, had at the last moment decided to draw out the beginning of battle, to let the sun continue its assault on the mud of the seabed. Alas, such delay was not in Redmask’s interest, and so he acted first.
The Letherii mages each stood within a protective ring of soldiers carrying oversized shields. They were positioned beyond arrow range, but Bivatt well knew their vulnerability nonetheless, particularly once they began their ritual summoning of power.
Toc Anaster, seated on his horse to permit him a clearer view, felt the scarring of his missing eye blaze into savage itching, and he could feel how the air grew charged, febrile, as the two mages bound their wills together. They could not, he suspected, maintain control for very long. The sorcery would need to erupt, would need to be released. To roll in foaming waves down into the seabed, blistering their way across the ground to crash into the Awl lines. Where warriors would die by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands.
Against such a thing, Redmask’s few shamans could do nothing. All that had once given power to the plains tribe was torn, very nearly shredded by displacement, by the desecration of holy grounds, by the deaths of countless warriors and elders and children. The Awl culture, Toc now understood, was crumbling, and to save it, to resurrect his people, Redmask needed victory this day, and he would do anything to achieve it.
Including, if need be, the sacrifice of his K’Chain Che’Malle.
Beneath their strange armour, beneath the fused swords at the end of the K’ell Hunter’s arms, beneath their silent language and inexplicable alliance with Redmask of the Awl, the K’Chain Che’Malle were reptiles, and their blood was cold, and deep in their brains, perhaps, could be found ancient memories, recollections of a pre-civilized existence, a wildness bound in the skein of instincts. And so the patience of a supreme predator coursed in that chill blood.
Reptiles. Damned lizards.
Thirty or so paces from where stood the mages and their guardian soldiers, the slope reached down to the edge of the ancient sea, where the mud stretched out amidst tufts of smeared, flattened grasses, and where run-off had pooled before slowly ebbing away into the silts beneath.
