The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (1175 page)

Ublala twisted to see if he could find Draconus – the man never seemed to sleep at all, though he'd lie down on occasion, which is what he'd been doing when Ralata had tried knifing Ublala. Wasn't she surprised!

The man was standing facing north, something he had been doing a lot of, lately.

People like him had too many thoughts, Ublala decided. So many he couldn't even rest from himself, and that had to be a hard thing to live with. No, it was better to have hardly any thoughts at all.
Like earth. Yes, that's it all right. Dirt.

But those tusks were scary, and that laughing was even worse!

 

A new scent on the cool breath drifting in from the west. Perhaps some ancient memories were stirred by it, something that left the pack agitated. She watched the lord stretching and then padding up to the rise. He possessed such power, as did all lords – he could stand on a high place, exposed to all four winds, and feel no fear.

The others remained in the high grasses of the slope, the young males pacing, the females in the shadow of the trees, where pups crawled and tumbled.

Bellies were full, but the herds wending up from the plains to the south were smaller this season, and there was a harried air to their long flight from thirst and heat, as if pursued by fire or worse. Hunting the beasts had been easy – the animal they'd brought down had already been exhausted, and the taste of old terror was in its blood.

The lord stood on the ridge. His ears sharpened and the others quickly rose – even the games of the pups ceased.

The lord staggered. Three sticks were jutting from it now, and from the slope beyond came strange excited barks. Blood threaded down from the sticks as the lord sank down, head twisting in a vain effort to reach the shafts. Then it fell on its side and stopped moving.

There was motion on all sides now, and more sticks whipped through foliage and grasses, sinking into flesh. The pack erupted in snarls of pain.

The figures that rushed in moved on their hind legs. Their skins gleamed with oil and their smell was that of crushed plants over something else. They flung more sticks. There was white around their eyes and they had small mouths from which came their wild barking.

She gasped as fire tore into her flank. Blood filled her throat, sprayed out from her nostrils and then poured from her jaws. She saw an attacker reach down and grasp a pup by its tail. He swung it and then slammed the little one against the bole of a tree.

An old scent.
They are among us again. There is nowhere to hide. Now we die.

Vision blurred, Setoc withdrew her hand from the bleached wolf's skull they'd found in the crotch of the gnarled tree growing from the edge of the dried-up spring. The rough, tortured bark had almost devoured the bleached bone.

The first tree they'd found in weeks. She wiped at her eyes.
And this.

It wasn't enough to grieve. She saw that now. Not enough to wallow in the anguish of blood on the hands. It wasn't enough to fight for mercy, to plead for a new way of walking the world. It wasn't enough to feel guilt.

She turned to study the camp. Faint, Precious Thimble, Sweetest Sufferance and Amby Bole, all looking for a way home. A place of comfort, all threats diminished, all dangers locked away. Where patrols kept the streets safe, where the fields ran in rows and so did trees. Or so she imagined – strange scenes that couldn't be memory, because she had no memory beyond the plains and the wild lands. But in those cities the only animals nearby were slaves or food, and those that weren't lived in cages, or their skins adorned the shoulders of fine ladies and bold nobles, or their bones waited in heaps for the grinders, to be fed into the planted fields.

That was their world, the one they wanted back.

You can have it. There is no place for me in it, is there? Very well.
The sorrow within her now seemed infinite. She walked from the camp, out into the darkness. The Bonecaster had taken the children, and Torrent with them. Destinies had taken the Trell and Gruntle. Death had taken the others.
But I owe you nothing. In your company, my ghost wolves stay away. They drift like distant desires. I am forgetting what it is to run free.

I am forgetting why I am here.

They would not miss her. They had their own haunts, after all.
I do not belong with you. I think – I think… I am what you left behind. Long ago.
She wondered if she too was in search of a destiny, the same as Mappo and Gruntle, but it seemed they were so much more than her, and that even the idea of a destiny for Setoc was ridiculous.
But the ghost wolves – and all the other fallen beasts – they look to me. For something. I just don't know what it is. And I need to find out.

Is that what destiny is? Is that all it is?

It was surprisingly easy to leave them behind, the ones she'd walked with for so long now. She could have turned back right then, to face the city – all the cities and all the broken lands that fed them. She could have chosen to accept her humanness. Instead…
look at me. Here I walk.

Let the Wolves cleanse this world. Let the beasts return. Above all, let the senseless killing end: we are tired of running, tired of dying. You must see that. You must feel something for that. Just how cold is your soul?

You empty the land. You break the earth and use it until it dies, and then your children starve. Do not blame me. Do not blame any of us for that.

Her breath caught and she hesitated. A sudden dark thought had flared in her mind. A knife in her hand. Throats opening to the night. Four more of the murderers dead. In a war that she knew might never end.
But what difference does that make – we've been losing for so long, I doubt we'd know the taste of victory even as it filled our mouths. Even as it drowned us in its glory.

Could she kill them? Could she turn around, here and now, and creep back into the camp?
No pup skulls to crack open, but still. The dead-inside have to work hard at their pleasures. That burst of shock. Disbelief. The sudden laugh. So hard, to feel anything at all, isn't it?

The thoughts were delicious, but she resumed her journey. It was not, she decided, her destiny to kill one here, another there. No, if she could, she would kill them all.
This is the war the Wolves have sought. The Hold shall be reborn. Am I to be their leader? Am I to stand alone at the head of some vast army of retribution?

All at once, the ghost wolves were surrounding her, brushing close, and she began a loping run, effortlessly, her heart surging with strength. Freedom – she understood now – was something so long lost among humans that they had forgotten what it felt like.
Bend to your labours! Grasp those coins! Keep the doors locked and fires raging to empty the shadows behind you! Make your brothers and sisters kneel before you, to serve your pleasures. Are you free? You don't remember the truth of what once was – of what you all so willingly surrendered.

I will show you freedom. So I vow: I will show you what it is to be free.

On all sides, the ghost wolves howled.

 

‘She's gone.'

Faint opened her eyes, blinked at the bright morning sun. ‘What? Who?'

‘The girl. Setoc, with the wolf eyes. Gone.'

She stared up at Amby, frowning. And then said, ‘Oh.'

‘I don't think she's coming back.'

‘No, Amby, I don't either.'

He moved back as she sat up. Her chest ached, her ragged scars itched. She was filthy and the taste in her mouth was thick with the rancid meat they'd eaten the night before. Amby stood like a man lost in the company of anyone but his brother – just a glance nearly broke her heart.

She looked past him. Sweetest Sufferance was still asleep, her rounded form swathed in blankets. Precious Thimble sat near the ashes of the night's fire, eyes fixed dully on Amby.

She'd heard tales of horror, amongst the shareholders who'd signed out and now sat in taverns waiting to die. They'd drink and tell of missions that had ended in disaster. A dead mage, lost in unknown lands, no way home. The few lucky ones would find a place to book passage, or perhaps another Trygalle carriage would find them, half starved and half mad, and these ones would come home broken, their eyes empty.

She stared up at the morning sky. Was the flying lizard still up there? Did it mock them with its cold eyes? She doubted it.
If we make it out of this, it will be a miracle. The longest tug of the Lady's luck this world has ever seen. And let's face it, things don't work out that way. They never do.

‘I smelled smoke,' said Amby.

‘When?'

He shrugged. ‘Dawn. The wind had yet to turn. Was running before the sun.'

East. She stood, studied the rumpled wastes. Was that a faint haze? No, that veil was too big. A cloud. ‘Well,' she said, ‘it's where we were headed, more or less.'

If the man wanted to smell things, fine. Made no difference.

‘We need water,' Amby said.

Sighing, Faint turned and approached Precious Thimble. The young witch would not meet her eyes. Faint waited for a moment, and then said, ‘Can you conjure water?'

‘I told you—'

‘Yes, the land's mostly dead. Still. Can you?'

‘There's no point in trying.'

‘Try anyway.'

Her eyes flashed. ‘Who left you in charge?'

‘You're a shareholder in the Trygalle. I have seniority here, Precious.'

‘But I'm—'

‘So far,' Faint cut in, ‘you're nothing. Show us some magery and that might drag you up a notch or two. Open us a gate home and I'll personally crown you empress. But until then, Precious, I'm in charge.'

‘It hurts.'

‘What does? Listen. People die.'

But she shook her head. ‘Magic. Here. The ground…
flinches
.'

‘Precious, I don't care if it howls. Just get us some water.'

‘It doesn't want us here. It doesn't want anyone here.'

‘Too bad.'

Precious shivered. ‘There's something… If it's a spirit – even the ghost of one. Maybe…'

‘Get started on it.' Faint walked over to Sweetest Sufferance. ‘Hood's breath, wake up.'

‘I'm awake, cow.'

Well, turned out everyone felt as miserable as she did.

‘Hungry,' said Precious Thimble.

Gods below.
Faint looked to the east again. Cloud or smoke? Nearby, Amby made a groaning sound. She glanced over. Something was wrong with his face – mud streaks? Tears? No, too dark. She stepped closer.
What, is that blood?

Nearby, the packhorse tore free of the stake tethering it and lunged away, hoofs thundering.

A rattling sound erupted from Sweetest Sufferance. Faint spun. ‘Sweetie?'

The blanket-swathed form was twitching.

‘Hungry,' said Precious Thimble again.

Spasms surged through Sweetest Sufferance, her limbs jumping. She kicked her way clear of the blankets, rolled on to her back. Her eyes were opened wide, filling with blood. Her face was visibly swelling. Flesh split.

‘In here?' asked Precious Thimble.

Faint whirled to the witch – saw the strange tilt to her head, the drool slicking her chin. Her eyes were glazed. She rushed over. ‘Get it out! Precious! Send it away!'

Sweetest Sufferance jerked upright, blood draining down from her fingertips. Bony projections had pushed through her face, closing the space for her eyes, her mouth. Her entire body shook as if something was inside, trying to escape. Tearing sounds burst from under her clothing as more bones thrust past skin, pushed at her sodden clothing.

The ground beneath the woman seemed to be cracking open.

Numb with horror, Faint backed up a step. Shock stole her will. ‘Precious – please—'

Amby suddenly howled and the cry was so raw it jolted Faint awake. Twisting round once more, she rushed to Precious Thimble. Struck the woman in the face, a vicious slap, as hard as she could manage. The young witch's head rocked. Amby screamed again.

Faint glanced back at Sweetest Sufferance – but the woman was mostly gone, and in her place, rising up from the broken earth below, was a stained wrist thick as the bole of an ancient tree. The hand had pushed its fingers through the woman's body, as if fighting free of an ill-fitting glove. Gore-streaked nails clawed at the air.

The ground tilted beneath Faint, almost pitching her from her feet.

Amby staggered up to Precious Thimble – his face a mask of blood – and when his fist struck her face her entire head snapped back. She toppled. Bawling, he took her in his arms and began running.

The arm was reaching higher, the remnants of Sweetest Sufferance's body still clinging to the grasping hand. Blood was burning away, blackening, shedding in flakes, revealing a limb of purest jade.

Faint staggered back. A mound was rising – an entire hill – splitting the hard ground. The tree at the spring thrashed, and on its long-dead branches green suddenly sprouted, writhing like worms. Jade fruit bulged, burgeoned in clusters to pull the branches down.

Rock exploded from a ridge fifty paces to the south. High grasses waved like jade flames. A vast, gleaming boulder rocked into view –
a forehead – oh, gods below, oh, Hood. Beru – please—

 

Draconus turned round, his eyes black as pools of ink. ‘Wait here,' he said.

Ublala opened his mouth, but the ground was shaking, rolling like waves rushing in from somewhere to the north, and he forgot what he wanted to ask. He turned to his beloved.

Ralata was awake, crouched low on the balls of her feet. Terror filled her face as she stared past Ublala.

He turned back in time to see Draconus drawing his sword. Blackness poured from the long blade like wind-whipped shrouds, billowing out, twisting to close around the man like folding wings. Draconus disappeared inside the darkness, and the inky cloud spiralled higher, growing in size. In moments it towered over them, and then those black wings unfolded once more.