The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (275 page)

The Shield Anvil thought to address his soldiers, if only to honour decorum, but now, as he stood scanning their faces, he realized that he had no words left within him: none to dress what mutually bound them together; none capable of matching the strangely cold pride he felt at that moment. Finally, he drew his sword, tested the straps holding his shield-arm in place, then turned to the main entranceway.

The hallway beyond had been cleared of corpses, creating an avenue between the stacked bodies to the outer doors.

Itkovian strode down the ghastly aisle, stepped between the leaning, battered doors, and out into sunlight.

Following their many assaults, the Pannions had pulled their fallen comrades away from the broad, shallow steps of the approach, had used the courtyard to haphazardly pile the bodies – including those still living, who then either expired from wounds or from suffocation.

Itkovian paused at the top of the steps. The sounds of fighting persisted from the direction of Jelarkan’s Concourse, but that was all he heard. Silence shrouded the scene before him, a silence so discordant in what had been a lively palace forecourt, in what had been a thriving city, that Itkovian was deeply shaken for the first time since the siege began.

Dear Fener, find for me the victory in this.

He descended the steps, the stone soft and gummy under his boots. His company followed, not a word spoken.

They strode through the shattered gate, began picking their way through the corpses on the ramp, then in the street beyond. Uncontested by the living, this would nevertheless prove a long journey. Nor would it be a journey without battle. Assailing them now were what their eyes saw, what their noses smelled, and what they could feel underfoot.

A battle that made shields and armour useless, that made flailing swords futile. A soul hardened beyond humanity was the only defence, and for Itkovian that price was too high.
I am the Shield Anvil. I surrender to what lies before me. Thicker than smoke, the grief unleashed and now lost, churning this lifeless air. A city has been killed. Even the survivors huddling in the tunnels below – Fener take me, better they never emerge … to see this.

Their route took them between the cemeteries. Itkovian studied the place where he and his soldiers had made a stand. It looked no different from anywhere else his eye scanned. The dead lay in heaps. As Brukhalian had promised, not one pavestone had gone uncontested. This small city had done all it could. Pannion victory might well have been inevitable, but thresholds nevertheless existed, transforming inexorable momentum into a curse.

And now the White Face clans of the Barghast had announced their own inevitability. What the Pannions had delivered had been in turn delivered upon them.
We are all pushed into a world of madness, yet it must now fall to each of us to pull back from this Abyss, to drag ourselves free of the descending spiral. From horror, grief must be fashioned, and from grief, compassion.

As the company entered a choked avenue at the edge of the Daru district, a score of Barghast emerged from an alley mouth directly ahead. Bloodied hook-swords in hands, white-painted faces spattered red. The foremost among them grinned at the Shield Anvil.

‘Defenders!’ he barked in harshly-accented Capan. ‘How sits this gift of liberation?’

Itkovian ignored the question, ‘You have kin at the Thrall, sir. Even now I see the protective glow fading.’

‘We shall see the bones of our gods, aye,’ the warrior said, nodding. His small, dark eyes scanned the Grey Swords. ‘You lead a tribe of women.’

‘Capan women,’ Itkovian said. ‘This city’s most resilient resource, though it fell to us to discover that. They are Grey Swords, now, sir, and for that we are strengthened.’

‘We’ve seen your brothers and sisters everywhere,’ the Barghast warrior growled. ‘Had they been our enemies, we would be glad they are dead.’

‘And as allies?’ the Shield Anvil asked.

The Barghast fighters one and all made a gesture, back of sword-hand to brow, the briefest brush of leather to skin, then the spokesman said, ‘The loss fills the shadows we cast. Know this, soldier, the enemy you left to us was brittle.’

Itkovian shrugged. ‘The Pannions’ faith knows not worship, only necessity. Their strength is a shallow thing, sir. Will you accompany us to the Thrall?’

‘At your sides, soldiers. In your shadow lies honour.’

Most of the structures in the Daru district had burned, collapsing in places to fill the streets with blackened rubble. As the Grey Swords and Barghast wound their way through the least cluttered paths, Itkovian’s eyes were drawn to one building still standing, off to their right. A tenement, its walls were strangely bowed. Banked fires had been built against the side facing him, scorching the stones, but the assault of flame had failed for some reason. Every arched window Itkovian could see looked to have been barricaded.

At his side, the Barghast spokesman growled, ‘Your kind crowd your barrows.’

The Shield Anvil glanced at the man. ‘Sir?’

The warrior nodded towards the smoke-hazed tenement and went on with his commentary, ‘Easier, aye, than digging and lining a pit outside the city, then the lines passing buckets of earth. You like a clear view from the walls, it seems. But
we
do not live among our dead in the manner of your people…’

Itkovian turned back to study the tenement, now slightly to the rear on the right. His eyes narrowed.
The barricades blocking the windows. Once more, flesh and bone. Twin Tusks, who would build such a necropolis? Surely, it cannot be the consequence of defence?

‘We wandered close,’ the warrior at his side said. ‘The walls give off their own heat. Jellied liquid bleeds between the cracks.’ He made another gesture, this one shuddering, hilt of his hook-sword clattering against the coin-wrought armour covering his torso. ‘By the bones, soldier, we fled.’

‘Is that tenement the only one so … filled?’

‘We’ve seen no other, though we did pass one estate that still held – enlivened corpses stood guard at the gate and on the walls. The air stank of sorcery, an emanation foul with necromancy. I tell you this, soldier, we shall be glad to quit this city.’

Itkovian was silent. He felt rent inside. The Reve of Fener voiced the truth of war. It spoke true of the cruelty that humanity was capable of unleashing upon its own kind. War was played like a game by those who led others; played in an illusory arena of calm reason, but such lies could not survive reality, and reality seemed to have no limits. The Reve held a plea for restraint, and insisted the glory to be found was not to be a blind one, rather a glory born of solemn, clear-eyed regard. Within limitless reality resided the promise of redemption.

That regard was failing Itkovian now. He was recoiling like a caged animal cruelly prodded on all sides. Escape was denied to him, yet that denial was self-imposed, a thing born of his conscious will, given shape by the words of his vow. He must assume this burden, no matter the cost. The fires of vengeance had undergone a transformation within him. He would be, at the last, the redemption – for the souls of the fallen in this city.

Redemption.
For everyone else, but not for himself. For that, he could only look to his god.
But, dear Fener, what has happened? Where are you? I kneel in place, awaiting your touch, yet you are nowhere to be found. Your realm … it feels … empty.

Where, now, can I go?

Aye, I am not yet done. I accept this. And when I am? Who awaits me? Who shall embrace me?
A shiver ran through him.

Who shall embrace me?

The Shield Anvil pushed the question away, struggled to renew his resolve. He had, after all, no choice. He would be Fener’s grief. And his Lord’s hand of justice. Not welcome responsibilities, and he sensed the toll they were about to exact.

They neared the plaza before the Thrall. Other Barghast were visible, joining in the convergence. The distant sounds of battle in Jelarkan Concourse, which had accompanied them through most of the afternoon, now fell silent. The enemy had been driven from the city.

Itkovian did not think the Barghast would pursue. They had achieved what they had come here to do. The Pannion threat to the bones of their gods had been removed.

Probably, if Septarch Kulpath still lived, he would reform his tattered forces, reassert discipline and prepare for his next move. Either a counterattack, or a westward withdrawal. There were risks to both. He might have insufficient force to retake the city. And his army, having lost possession of their camps and supply routes, would soon suffer from lack of supplies. It was not an enviable position. Capustan, a small, inconsequential city on the east coast of Central Genabackis, had become a many-sided curse. And the lives lost here signified but the beginning of the war to come.

They emerged onto the plaza.

The place where Brukhalian had fallen lay directly ahead, but all the bodies had been removed – taken, no doubt, by the retreating Pannions. Flesh for yet another royal feast.
It doesn’t matter. Hood came for him. In person. Was that a sign of honour, or petty gloating on the god’s part?

The Shield Anvil’s gaze held on that stained stretch of flagstones for a moment longer, then swung to the Thrall’s main gate.

The glow was gone. In the shadows beneath the gate’s arch, figures had appeared.

Every approach to the plaza had filled with Barghast, but they ventured no further.

Itkovian turned back to his company. His eyes found his captain – who had been the master-sergeant in charge of training the recruits – then Velbara. He studied their tattered, stained armour, their lined, drawn faces. ‘The three of us, sirs, to the centre of the plaza.’

The two women nodded.

The three strode onto the concourse. Thousands of eyes fixed on them, followed by a rumbling murmur, then a rhythmic, muted clashing of blade on blade.

Another party emerged, from the right. Soldiers, wearing uniforms Itkovian did not recognize, and, in their company, figures displaying barbed, feline tattooing. Leading the latter group, a man Itkovian had seen before. The Shield Anvil’s steps slowed.

Gruntle.
The name was a hammerblow to his chest. Brutal certainty forced his next thoughts.
The Mortal Sword of Trake, Tiger of Summer. The First Hero is ascended.

We … we are replaced.

Steeling himself, Itkovian resumed his pace, then halted in the centre of the expanse.

A single soldier in the foreign uniform had moved up alongside Gruntle. He closed a hand around the big Daru’s striped arm and barked something back to the others, who all stopped, while the man and Gruntle continued on, directly towards Itkovian.

A commotion from the Thrall’s gate caught their attention. Priests and priestesses of the Mask Council were emerging, holding a struggling comrade among them as they hastened forward. In the lead, Rath’Trake. A step behind, the Daru merchant, Keruli.

The soldier and Gruntle reached Itkovian first.

Beneath the Daru’s helm, Gruntle’s tiger eyes studied the Shield Anvil. ‘Itkovian of the Grey Swords,’ he rumbled, ‘it is done.’

Itkovian had no need to ask for elaboration. The truth was a knife in his heart.

‘No, it isn’t,’ the foreign soldier snapped. ‘I greet you, Shield Anvil. I am Captain Paran, of the Bridgeburners. Onearm’s Host.’

‘He is more than that,’ Gruntle muttered. ‘What he claims now—’

‘Is nothing I do willingly,’ Paran finished. ‘Shield Anvil. Fener has been torn from his realm. He strides a distant land. You – your company – you have lost your god.’

And so it is known to all.
‘We are aware of this, sir.’

‘Gruntle says that your place, your role, is done. The Grey Swords must step aside, for a new god of war has gained preeminence. But that doesn’t have to be. A path for you has been prepared…’ Paran’s gaze went past Itkovian. He raised his voice. ‘Welcome, Humbrall Taur. Your children no doubt await within the Thrall.’

The Shield Anvil glanced back over his shoulder to see, standing ten paces behind him, a huge Barghast warchief in coin-threaded armour.

‘They can wait a while longer,’ Humbrall Taur growled. ‘I would witness this.’

Paran grimaced. ‘Nosy bastard—’

‘Aye.’

The Malazan returned his attention to Itkovian and made to speak, but the Shield Anvil interrupted him: ‘A moment, sir.’ He stepped past the two men.

Rath’Fener jerked and twisted in the grip of his fellow priests. His mask was awry, wisps of grey hair pulled free of the leather strapping. ‘Shield Anvil!’ he cried upon seeing Itkovian’s approach. ‘In the name of Fener—’

‘In
his
name, aye, sir,’ Itkovian cut in. ‘To my side, Captain Norul. The Reve’s law is invoked.’

‘Sir,’ the grizzled woman replied, stepping forward.

‘You can’t!’ Rath’Fener screamed. ‘For this, only the Mortal Sword can invoke the Reve!’

Itkovian stood motionless.

The priest managed to pull one arm forward to jab a finger at the Shield Anvil. ‘My rank is as Destriant! Unless you’ve one to make claim to that title?’

‘Destriant Karnadas is dead.’

‘That man was no Destriant, Shield Anvil! An Aspirant, perhaps, but my rank was and remains pre-eminent. Thus, only a Mortal Sword can invoke the Reve against me, and this you know.’

Gruntle snorted. ‘Itkovian, Paran here told me there was a betrayal. Your priest sold Brukhalian’s life to the Pannions. Not only disgusting, but ill-advised. So.’ He paused. ‘Will any Mortal Sword do? If so, I invoke the Reve.’ He bared his teeth at Rath’Fener. ‘Punish the bastard.’

We are replaced. The Lord of Battle is transformed indeed.

‘He cannot!’ Rath’Fener shrieked.

‘A bold claim,’ Itkovian said to the masked priest. ‘In order to deny this man’s right to the title, sir, you must call upon our god. In your defence. Do so, sir, and you shall walk from here a free man.’

The eyes within the mask went wide. ‘You know that is impossible, Itkovian!’