The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (252 page)

She had come to fear their courage. Within the husk of her body, there was a broken spirit. Dishonoured by its own cowardice, bereft of dignity, a mother no longer. Lost, even, to the Rhivi.
I am no more than food to the child. I have seen her, from a distance now and no closer – she is taller, she has filled out, her hips, her breasts, her face. This Tattersail was no gazelle. She devours me, this new woman, with her sleepy eyes, her full, broad mouth, her swaying, sultry walk—

A horseman rode to the wagon’s rear, his armour clanking, his dusty cloak flapping as he slowed his charger. The visor on his burnished helm was raised, revealing a grey-shot beard, trimmed close, beneath hard eyes.

‘Will you send me away as well, Mhybe?’ he growled, his horse slowing to a walk to keep pace.

‘Mhybe? That woman is dead,’ she replied. ‘You may leave here, Whiskeyjack.’

She watched him pull the tanned leather gloves from his wide, scarred hands, studied those hands as they finally came to a rest on the saddlehorn.
There is a mason’s brutality about them, yet they are endearing none the less. Any woman still alive would desire their touch …

‘An end to the foolishness, Mhybe. We’ve need of your counsel. Korlat tells me you are racked with dreams. You cry out against a threat that approaches us, something vast and deadly. Woman, your terror is palpable – even now, I see that my words have rekindled it in your eyes. Describe your visions, Mhybe.’

Struggling against a painfully hammering heart, she barked a rough, broken laugh. ‘You are all fools. Would you seek to challenge my enemy? My deadly, unopposable foe? Will you draw that sword of yours and stand in my stead?’

Whiskeyjack scowled. ‘If that would help.’

‘There is no need. What comes for me in my dreams comes for us all. Oh, perhaps we soften its terrible visage, the darkness of a cowl, a vague human shape, even a skull’s grin which only momentarily shocks yet remains, none the less, deeply familiar – almost comforting. And we build temples to blunt the passage into its eternal domain. We fashion gates, raise barrows—’

‘Your enemy is death?’ Whiskeyjack glanced away, then met her eyes again. ‘This is nonsense, Mhybe. You and I are both too old to fear death.’

‘Face to face with Hood!’ she snapped. ‘That is how you see it – you fool! He is the mask behind which hides something beyond your ability to comprehend.
I have seen it! I know
what awaits me!’

‘Then you no longer yearn for it—’

‘I was mistaken, back then. I believed in my tribe’s spiritworld. I have
sensed
the ghosts of my ancestors. But they are but memories made manifest, a sense of self desperately holding itself together by strength of its own will and naught else. Fail in that will, and all is lost. For ever.’

‘Is oblivion so terrible, Mhybe?’

She leaned forward, gripping the wagon’s sides with fingers that clawed, nails that dug into the weathered wood. ‘What lies beyond is
not
oblivion, you ignorant man! No, imagine a place crowded with fragmented memories – memories of pain, of despair – all those emotions that carve deepest upon our souls.’ She fell back, weakened, and slowly sighed, her eyes closing. ‘Love drifts like ashes, Whiskeyjack. Even identity is gone. Instead, all that is left of you is doomed to an eternity of pain and terror – a succession of fragments from everyone – every
thing
– that has ever lived. In my dreams … I stand upon the brink. There is no strength in me – my will has already shown itself weak, wanting. When I die … I see what awaits me, I see what hungers for me, for my memories, for my pain.’ She opened her eyes, met his gaze. ‘It is the true Abyss, Whiskeyjack. Beyond all the legends and stories, it is the
true
Abyss. And it lives unto itself, consumed by rapacious hunger.’

‘Dreams can be naught but an imagination’s fashioning of its own fears, Mhybe,’ the Malazan said. ‘You are projecting a just punishment for what you perceive as your life’s failure.’

Her eyes narrowed on him. ‘Get out of my sight,’ she growled, turning away, drawing her hood tighter about her head, cutting off the outside world – all that lay beyond the warped, stained planks of the wagon’s bed.
Begone, Whiskeyjack, with your sword-thrust words, the cold, impervious armour of your ignorance. You cannot answer all that I have seen with a simple, brutal statement. I am not a stone for your rough hands. The knots within me defy your chisel.

Your sword-thrust words shall not cut to my heart.

I dare not accept your wisdom. I dare—

Whiskeyjack. You bastard.

*   *   *

The commander rode at a gentle canter through the dust until he reached the vanguard of the Malazan army. Here, he found Dujek, flanked by Korlat on one side and the Daru, Kruppe, on the other, the latter tottering uneasily on a mule, hands waving about at the swarming midges.

‘A plague on these pernicious gnats! Kruppe despairs!’

‘The wind will pick up soon enough,’ Dujek growled. ‘We’re approaching hills.’

Korlat drew closer alongside Whiskeyjack. ‘How does she fare, Commander?’

He grimaced. ‘No better. Her spirit is as twisted and shrunken as her body. She has fashioned a vision of death that has her fleeing it in terror.’

‘Tat—Silverfox feels abandoned by her mother. This leads to bitterness. She no longer welcomes our company.’

‘Her too? This is turning into a contest of wills, I think. Isolation is the last thing she needs, Korlat.’

‘In that she is like her mother, as you have just intimated.’

He let out a long sigh, shifted in his saddle. His thoughts began to drift; he was weary, his leg aching and stiff. Sleep had been eluding him. They had heard virtually nothing of the fate of Paran and the Bridgeburners. The warrens had become impassable. Nor were they certain if the siege of Capustan was under way, or of the city’s fate. Whiskeyjack had begun to regret sending the Black Moranth away. Dujek and Brood’s armies were marching into the unknown; even the Great Raven Crone and her kin had not been seen for over a week.

It’s these damned warrens and the sickness now filling them …

‘They’re late,’ Dujek muttered.

‘And no more than that, Kruppe assures one and all. Recall the last delivery. Almost dusk, it was. Three horses left on the lead wagon, the others killed and cut from the traces. Four shareholders gone, their souls and earnings scattered to the infernal winds. And the merchant herself! Near death, she was. The warning was clear, my friends – the warrens have been compromised. And as we march ever closer to the Domin, the foulment grows ever more … uh, foul.’

‘Yet you insist they’ll make it through again.’

‘Kruppe does, High Fist! The Trygalle Trade Guild honours its contracts. They are not to be underestimated. ’Tis the day of their delivery of supplies. Said supplies shall therefore be delivered. And, assuming Kruppe’s request has been honoured, among those supplies will be crates of the finest insect repellent ever created by the formidable alchemists of Darujhistan!’

Whiskeyjack leaned towards Korlat. ‘Where in the line does she walk?’ he asked quietly.

‘At the very rear, Commander—’

‘And is anyone watching her?’

The Tiste Andii woman glanced over and frowned. ‘Is there need?’

‘How in Hood’s name should I know?’ he snapped. A moment later he scowled. ‘Your pardon, Korlat. I shall seek her out myself.’ He swung his mount around, nudged it into a canter.

‘Tempers grow short,’ Kruppe murmured as the commander rode away. ‘But not as short as Kruppe, for whom all nasty words whiz impactless over his head, and are thus lost in the ether. And those darts aimed lower, ah, they but bounce from Kruppe’s ample equanimity—’

‘Fat, you mean,’ Dujek said, wiping dust from his brow then leaning over to spit onto the ground.

‘Ahem, Kruppe, equably cushioned, blithely smiles at the High Fist’s jibe. It is the forthright bluntness of soldiers that one must bathe in whilst on the march leagues from civilization. Antidote to the snipes of gutter rats, a refreshing balm to droll, sardonic nobles – why prick with a needle when one can use a hammer, eh? Kruppe breathes deep – but not so deep as to cough from the dust-laden stench of nature – such simple converse. The intellect must needs shift with alacrity from the intricate and delicate steps of the court dance to the tribal thumping of boots in grunting cadence—’

‘Hood take us,’ Korlat muttered to the High Fist, ‘you got under his skin after all.’

Dujek’s answering grin was an expression of perfect satisfaction.

*   *   *

Whiskeyjack angled his horse well to one side of the columns, then drew rein to await the rearguard. There were Rhivi everywhere in sight, moving singly or in small groups, their long spears balanced on their shoulders. Brown-skinned beneath the sun, they strode with light steps, seemingly immune to the heat and the leagues passing under their feet. The bhederin herd was being driven parallel to the armies, a third of a league to the north. The intervening gap revealed a steady stream of Rhivi, returning from the herd or setting off towards it. The occasional wagon joined the to-and-fro, unladen on its way north, burdened with carcasses on the way back.

The rearguard came within sight, flanked by outriders, the Malazan companies in sufficient strength to blunt a surprise attack long enough for the main force to swing round and come to their relief. The commander lifted the water-bladder from his saddle and filled his mouth, eyes narrowed as he studied the disposition of his soldiers.

Satisfied, he urged his mount into a walk, squinting into the trailing clouds of dust at the rearguard’s tail-end.

She walked in that cloud as if seeking obscurity, her stride so like Tattersail’s that Whiskeyjack felt a shiver dance up his spine. Twenty paces behind her marched a pair of Malazan soldiers, crossbows slung over their shoulders, helms on and visors lowered.

The commander waited until the trio had passed, then guided his horse into their wake. Within moments he was alongside the two marines.

The soldiers glanced up. Neither saluted, following standard procedure for battlefields. The woman closest to Whiskeyjack offered a curt nod. ‘Commander. Here to fill your quota of eating dust, are ya?’

‘And how did you two earn the privilege?’

‘We volunteered, sir,’ the other woman said. ‘That’s Tattersail up there. Yeah, we know, she calls herself Silverfox now, but we ain’t fooled. She’s our Cadre Mage, all right.’

‘So you’ve elected to guard her back.’

‘Aye. Fair exchange, sir. Always.’

‘And are the two of you enough?’

The first woman grinned beneath her half-visor. ‘We’re Hood-damned killers, me and my sister, sir. Two quarrels every seventy heartbeats, both of us. And when time’s run out for that, why, then, we switch to longswords, one for each hand. And when they’re all busted, it’s pig-stickers—’

‘And,’ the other growled, ‘when we’re outa iron we use our teeth, sir.’

‘How many brothers did you two grow up with?’

‘Seven, only they all ran away as soon as they was able. So did Da, but Mother was better off without ‘im and that wasn’t just bluster when she said so, neither.’

Whiskeyjack edged closer, rolling up his left sleeve. He leaned down and showed the two marines his forearm. ‘See those scars – no, these ones here.’

‘A nice even bite,’ the nearest woman observed. ‘Pretty small, though.’

‘She was five, the little banshee. I was sixteen. The first fight I ever lost.’

‘Did the lass grow up to be a soldier, Commander?’

He straightened, lowering his sleeve. ‘Hood, no. When she was twelve, she set off to marry a king. Or so she claimed. That was the last any of us ever saw or heard of her.’

‘I’d bet she did just that, sir,’ the first woman said. ‘If she was anything like you.’

‘Now I’m choking on more than just dust, soldier. Carry on.’

Whiskeyjack trotted ahead until he reached Silverfox.

‘They’ll die for you now,’ she said as soon as he came alongside. ‘I know,’ she continued, ‘you don’t do it on purpose. There’s nothing calculated when you’re being human, old friend. That’s what makes you so deadly.’

‘No wonder you’re walking here on your own,’ he replied.

Her smile was sardonic. ‘We’re very much alike, you know. All we need do is cup our hands and ten thousand souls rush in to fill them. And every now and then one of us recognizes that fact, and the sudden, overwhelming pressure hardens us a little more deep down inside. And what was soft gets a little smaller, a little weaker.’

‘Not weaker, Silverfox. Rather, more concentrated, more selective. That you feel the burden at all is proof that it remains alive and well.’

‘There
is
a difference, now that I think on it,’ she said. ‘For you, ten thousand souls. For me, a hundred thousand.’

He shrugged.

She was about to continue, but a sharp crack filled the air behind them. They spun to see a savage parting in their wake, a thousand paces away, from which poured a crimson river. The two marines backpedalled as the torrent tumbled towards them.

The high grasses blackened, wavered, then sank down on all sides. Distant shouts rose from the Rhivi who had seen the conflagration.

The Trygalle wagon that emerged from the fissure burned with black fire. The horses themselves were engulfed, their screams shrill and horrible as they plunged madly onto the flooded plain. The beasts were devoured in moments, leaving the wagon to roll forward of its own momentum in the spreading red stream. One front wheel collapsed. The huge contrivance pitched, pivoted, burnt bodies falling from its flanks, then careened onto its side in an explosion of ebon flames.

The second wagon that emerged was licked by the same sorcerous fire, though not yet out of control. A nimbus of protective magic surrounded the eight horses in the train, fraying even as they thundered into the clear, splashing through the river of blood that continued to spread out from the portal. The driver, standing like a mad apparition with his cloak streaming black fire, bellowed a warning to the two marines before leaning hard to one side and sawing the traces. The horses swerved, pulling the huge wagon onto two wheels a moment before it came crunching back down. A guardsman who had been clinging to its side was thrown by the impact, landing with a turgid splash in the spreading river. A red-sheathed arm rose above the tide, then sank back down and out of sight.