The Malazan Empire, page 850
The High Mage’s glittering eyes narrowed, and then he smiled. ‘I may not like you much, Bottle, but sometimes . . . I like what you say.’
‘Lucky you. Now, can we get out of this place?’
‘I think it is time,’ she said, ‘for us to leave.’
Withal squinted at her, and then rubbed at the bristle on his chin. ‘You want better accommodation, love?’
‘No, you idiot. I mean leave. The Bonehunters, this city, all of it. You did what you had to do. I did what I had to do—my miserable family of Rake’s runts are gone, now. Nothing holds us here any more. Besides,’ she added, ‘I don’t like where things are going.’
‘That reading—’
‘Meaningless.’ She fixed a level gaze on him. ‘Do I look like the Queen of High House Dark?’
Withal hesitated.
‘Do you value your life, husband?’
‘If you want us to leave, why, I don’t expect anyone will try to stop us. We can book passage . . . somewhere.’ And then he frowned. ‘Hold on, Sand. Where will we go?’
Scowling, she rose and began pacing round their small, sparsely furnished room. ‘Remember the Shake? On that prison island?’
‘Aye. The ones that used old Andii words for some things.’
‘Who worship the shore, yes.’
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Who also seemed to think that the shore was dying.’
‘Maybe the one they knew—I mean, there’s always some kind of shore.’
‘Rising sea levels.’
‘Aye.’
‘Those sea levels,’ she continued, now facing the window and looking out over the city, ‘have been kept unnaturally low . . . for a long time.’
‘They have?’
‘Omtose Phellack. The rituals of ice. The Jaghut and their war with the T’lan Imass. The vast ice fields are melting, Withal.’ She faced him. ‘You’re Meckros—you’ve seen for yourself the storms—we saw it again at Fent Reach—the oceans are in chaos. Seasons are awry. Floods, droughts, infestations. And where does the Adjunct want to take her army? East. To Kolanse. But it’s a common opinion here in Lether that Kolanse is suffering a terrible drought.’ Her dark eyes hardened. ‘Have you ever seen an entire people starving, dying of thirst?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘I am old, husband. I remember the Saelen Gara, an offshoot Andii people in my home world. They lived in the forests. Until the forests died. We begged them, then, to come to Kharkanas. To the cities of the realm. They refused. Their hearts were broken, they said. Their world had died, and so they elected to die with it. Andarist begged . . .’ Her gaze clouded then and she turned away, back to the window. ‘Yes, Withal, to answer you. Yes, I have. And I will not see it again.’
‘Very well. Where to, then?’
‘We will begin,’ she said, ‘with a visit to the Shake.’
‘What have they to tell you, Sand? Garbled memories. Ignorant superstitions.’
‘Withal. I fell in battle. We warred with the K’Chain Che’Malle. Until the Tiste Edur betrayed us, slaughtered us. Clearly, they were not as thorough as they perhaps should have been. Some Andii survived. And it seems that there were more than just K’Chain Che’Malle dwelling in that region. There were humans.’
‘The Shake.’
‘People who would become the Shake, once they took in the surviving Andii. Once the myths and legends of both groups knitted together and became indistinguishable.’ She paused, and then said, ‘But even then, there must have been a schism of some sort. Unless, of course, the Tiste Andii of Bluerose were an earlier population, a migration distinct from our own. But my thinking is this: some of the Shake, with Tiste Andii among them, split away, travelled inland. They were the ones who created Bluerose, a theocracy centred on the worship of the Black-Winged Lord. On Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness.’
‘Is it not equally possible,’ ventured Withal, ‘that all the Tiste Andii left? Leaving just the Shake, weakly blood-mixed here and there, perhaps, but otherwise just human, yet now possessing that knitted skein of myths and such?’
She glanced at him, frowned. ‘That’s a thought, husband. The Tiste Andii survivors used the humans, to begin with, to regain their strength—to stay alive on this unknown world—even to hide them from Edur hunting parties. And then, when at last they judged they were ready, and it was safe, they all left.’
‘But wouldn’t the Shake have then rejected them? Their stories? Their words? After all, they certainly didn’t worship the Tiste Andii, did they? They worshipped the shore—and you have to admit, that’s one strange religion they have. Praying to a strip of beach and whatnot.’
‘And that is what interests me more than those surviving Tiste Andii. And that is why I wish to speak with their elders, their witches and warlocks.’
‘Deadsmell described the horrid skeletons his squad and Sinn found on the north end of the island. Half reptilian, half human. Misbegotten—’
‘That were quickly killed, disposed of. The taint, Withal, of K’Chain Che’Malle. And so, before we Tiste even arrived, they lived in the shadow of the Che’Malle. And it was not in isolation. No, there was some form of contact, some kind of relationship. There must have been.’
He thought about that, still uncertain as to where her thoughts were taking her. Why it had become so important that she uncover the secrets of the Shake. ‘Sandalath, why did you Tiste war against the K’Chain Che’Malle?’
She looked startled. ‘Why? Because they were different.’
‘I see. And they fought against you in turn. Because you were different, or because you were invading their world?’
She reached up and closed the shutters, blocking out the cityscape and sky beyond. The sudden gloom was like a shroud on their conversation. ‘I’m going out now,’ she said. ‘Start packing.’
With delicate precision, Telorast nipped at the eyelid, clasping it and lifting it away from the eye. Curdle leaned in for a closer look, then pulled back, hind claws scrabbling to maintain their grip on the front of Banaschar’s tunic.
‘He’s piss drunk, all right. Snuffed candle. Doused fire, gutted lamp, the reeking dead.’
Telorast released the lid, watched it sink back down. Banaschar sighed wetly, groaned and shifted in the chair, head lolling.
The two skeletal creatures scrambled down and rendezvoused on the window sill on the other side of the small room. They tilted their heads closer together.
‘What now?’ Curdle whispered.
‘What kind of question is that? What now? What now? Have you lost your mind?’
‘Well, what now, Telorast?’
‘How should I know! But listen, we need to do something! That Errant—he’s . . . he’s—well, I hate him, is what! And worse, he’s using Banaschar, our very own ex-priest.’
‘Our pet.’
‘That’s right. Our pet—not his!’
‘We should kill him.’
‘Who? Banaschar or the Errant?’
‘If we kill Banaschar, then nobody has a pet. If we kill the Errant, then we can keep Banaschar all to ourselves.’
‘Right, Curdle,’ Telorast said, nodding, ‘but which one would make the Errant angrier?’
‘Good question. We need something to make him go mad, completely mad—that’s the best revenge for stealing our pet.’
‘And then we kill him.’
‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter! Why are you being so thick? Oh, what a ridiculous question! Listen, Curdle, now we got ourselves a plan and that’s good. It’s a start. So let’s think some more. Vengeance against the Errant.’
‘The Elder God.’
‘Right.’
‘Who’s still around.’
‘Right.’
‘Stealing pets.’
‘Curdle—’
‘I’m just thinking out loud, that’s all!’
‘You call that thinking? No wonder we ended up torn to pieces and dead and worse than dead!’
‘Oh, and what are you thinking, then?’
‘I didn’t have any time to, since I had to answer all your questions!’
‘You always got an excuse, Telorast, did you know that? Always.’
‘And you’re it, Curdle, did you know that?’
A voice croaked from the other side of the room, ‘What are you two whispering about over there?’
The two skeletons flinched. Then, tail lashing about, Telorast ducked a head in Banaschar’s direction. ‘Absolutely nothing, and that’s a fact. In fact, beloved pet, that’s the problem! Every time! It’s Curdle. She’s an idiot! She drives me mad! Drives you to drink, too, I bet.’
‘The Errant’s game is one of fate,’ Banaschar said, rubbing at his face. ‘He uses—abuses—proclivities, tendencies. He nudges, pushes over the edge.’ He blinked blearily at the two skeletons. ‘To take him down, you need to take advantage of that selfsame obsession. You need to set a trap.’
Telorast and Curdle hopped down from the sill and advanced on the seated man, tails flicking, heads low. ‘A trap,’ whispered Telorast. ‘That’s good. We thought you’d switched gods, that’s what we thought—’
‘Don’t tell him what we thought!’ Curdle hissed.
‘It doesn’t matter now—he’s on our side! Weren’t you listening?’
‘The Errant wants all he once had,’ said Banaschar. ‘Temples, worshippers, domination. Power. To do that, he needs to take down the gods. The High Houses . . . all in ruins. Smouldering heaps. This coming war with the Crippled God presents him with his chance—a few nudges on the battlefield—who’d notice? He wants spilled blood, my friends, that’s what he wants.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ asked Curdle.
The two creatures had reached Banaschar’s scuffed boots and were now bobbing and fawning. ‘The chaos of battle,’ murmured Telorast, ‘yes, that would be ideal.’
‘For us,’ nodded Curdle.
‘Precisely. Our chance.’
‘To do what?’ Banaschar asked. ‘Find yourselves a couple of thrones?’ He snorted. Ignoring them as they prostrated themselves at his feet, he held up his hands and stared at them. ‘See this tremble, friends? What does it truly signify? I will tell you. I am the last living priest of D’rek. Why was I spared? I lost all the privileges of worship within a temple. I lost a secular game of influence and power, diminished in the eyes of my brothers and sisters. In the eyes of everyone, I imagine. But I never gave up worshipping my god.’ He squinted. ‘I should be dead. Was I simply forgotten? Has it taken longer than D’rek thought? To hunt us all down? When will my god find me?’ After a moment longer he lowered his hands on to his thighs. ‘I just . . . wait.’
‘Our pet’s disenchanted,’ whispered Telorast.
‘That’s bad,’ Curdle whispered back.
‘We need to find him a woman.’
‘Or a child to eat.’
‘They don’t eat children, Curdle.’
‘Well, some other kind of treat, then.’
‘A bottle!’
‘A bottle, yes, that’s good!’
They went hunting.
Banaschar waited.
Koryk trained his crossbow on the back of the scout’s helmed head. His finger edged down to the iron press.
The point of a knife hovered into view opposite his right eye. ‘I got orders,’ whispered Smiles, ‘to kill you if you kill anyone.’
He drew his finger back. ‘Like Hood you have. Besides, it might be an accident.’
‘Oh, I saw that for sure, Koryk. Your trigger finger just accidentally slipping down like that. And then, oh, in went my knife point—another accident. Tragedies! We’ll burn you on a pyre Seti style and that’s a promise.’
He lowered the crossbow and rolled on to his side, out of sight of the clumsy scout on the track below. ‘Right, that makes perfect sense, Smiles. A pyre for the people who live on the grasslands. We like our funerals to involve, why, everyone. We burn down whole villages and scorch the ground for leagues in every direction.’
She blinked at him, and then shrugged. ‘Whatever you do with your dead, then.’
He worked his way down the slope, Smiles following.
‘My turn,’ she said when they reached the draw. ‘Get back up there.’
‘You waited till we got down here to say that?’
She grinned.
Leaving him to scrabble back into position, Smiles set off through the brush. It wasn’t that the Letherii scouts were especially bad. It was more the case that their tradition of warfare kept them trapped in the idea of huge armies clashing on open fields. Where scouts were employed simply to find the enemy encampments. The notion of a foe that could melt into the landscape the way the Malazans could, or even the idea that the enemy might split its forces, avoid direct clashes, and whittle the Letherii down with raids, ambushes and disrupted supply lines—none of that was part of their military thinking.
The Tiste Edur had been tougher by far. Their fighting style was much closer to the Malazan one, which probably explained why the Edur conquered the Letherii the first time round.
Of course, the Malazans could stand firm in a big scrap, but it made sense to have spent some time demoralizing and weakening their foe beforehand.
These Letherii had a lot still to learn. After all, one day the Malazans might be back. Not the Bonehunters, but the imperial armies of the Empress. A new kingdom to conquer, a new continent to subjugate. If King Tehol wanted to hold on to what he had, his brother had better be commanding a savvy, nasty army that knew how to face down Malazan marines, heavies, squad mages, sappers with munitions, and decent cavalry.
She quietly grunted as she approached the hidden camp. Poor Brys Beddict. They might as well surrender now.
‘If you was any less ugly,’ a voice said, ‘I’d a killed you for sure.’
She halted, scowling. ‘Took your time announcing yourself, picket.’
The soldier that edged into view was dark-skinned, barring a piebald blotch of pink disfiguring half his face and most of his forehead. The heavy crossbow in his hands was cocked but no quarrel rested in the slot.
Smiles pushed past him. ‘Talk about ugly—you live in my nightmares, Gullstream, you know that?’
The man stepped in behind her. ‘Can’t help being so popular with the ladies,’ he said. ‘Especially the Letherii ones.’
Despite the blotch, there was indeed something about Gullstream that made women take a second and third look. She suspected he might have some Tiste Andii blood in his veins. The almond-shaped eyes that never seemed to settle on any one colour; his way of moving—as if he had all the time in the world—and the fact that he was, according to rumour, well-hung. Shaking her head to clear away stupid thoughts, she said, ‘Their scouts have gone right past—staying on the track mostly. So the Fist can move us all up. We’ll fall on the main column screaming our lungs out and that will be that.’
As she was saying this, they entered the camp—a few hundred soldiers sitting or lying quietly amidst the trees, stumps and brush.
Seeing Keneb, Smiles headed over to make her report.
The Fist was sitting on a folding camp stool, using the point of his dagger to scrape mud from the soles of his boots. A cup of steaming herbal tea rested on a stump beside him. Sprawled on the ground a few paces away was Sergeant Fiddler, and just beyond him Sergeant Balm sat crosslegged, studying the short sword he was holding, his expression confused. A dozen heavies waited nearby, grouped together and seeming to be engaged in comparing their outthrust hands—counting knuckle hairs, I bet.
‘Fist, Scout Smiles reporting, sir.’
Keneb glanced up. ‘As predicted?’
‘Aye, sir. Can we go kill ’em all now?’
The Fist looked over at Fiddler, ‘Looks like you lost your bet, Sergeant.’
Eyes still closed, Fiddler grunted, then said, ‘We ain’t done any killing yet, sir. Brys Beddict’s been fishin in our brains for some time now, he’s bound to have snagged a fin or gill or two. Smiles, how many scouts on the track?’
‘Just the one, Sergeant. Picking his nose.’
Fiddler opened his eyes and squinted over at Keneb. ‘Like that, Fist. Beddict’s reconfigured his scouting patrols—they pair up. If Smiles and Koryk saw only one, then where was the other one?’ He shifted to get more comfortable and closed his eyes again. ‘And he runs five units—five pairs—in advance of his main body. So.’
‘So,’ repeated Keneb, frowning. He rose, slipped the dagger into his scabbard. ‘If he’s sent one or two down the track, they were meant to be seen. Sergeant Balm, find me that map.’
‘Map, sir? What map?’
Muttering under his breath, Keneb walked over to the heavies. ‘You there—yes, you—name?’
‘Reliko, sir.’
‘What are you doing with those heavies, Reliko?’
‘Why, cos I am one, sir.’
Watching this, Smiles snorted. The top of Reliko’s gnarly head barely reached her shoulder. The man looked like a prune with arms and legs.
‘Who’s your sergeant?’ Keneb asked the Dal Honese soldier.
‘Badan Gruk, sir. But he stayed back sick, sir, along with Sergeant Sinter and Kisswhere. Me and Vastly Blank here, we squadding up with Drawfirst and Shoaly, under Sergeant Primly, sir.’
‘Very well. Go into the command tent and bring me the map.’
‘Aye sir. You want the table with it?’
‘No, that won’t be necessary.’
As the soldier walked off, Fiddler said, ‘Coulda been there and back by now, sir. All by yourself.’
‘I could have, yes. And just for that observation, Sergeant, go and get that map-table for me.’
‘Thought it wasn’t necessary, sir?’
‘I changed my mind. On your feet.’
Groaning, Fiddler sat up, nudged Balm and said, ‘You and me, we got work to do.’
Blinking, Balm stared at him a moment. Then he leapt upright, sword in his hand. ‘Where are they, then?’
‘Follow me,’ Fiddler said, climbing to his feet. ‘And put that thing away before you poke me with it.’
‘Why would I stab you? I mean, I know you, right? I think. Aye, I know you.’
