The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (305 page)

Directly south, the old walls of Lest were visible. There was no sign that repairs had been made since the Pannion conquest. The air above the city was clear of smoke, empty of birds. The Rhivi scouts had reported that there was naught but a few charred bones littering the streets. There had been raised gardens once, for which Lest had been known, but the flow of water had ceased weeks past and fire had since swept through the city – even at this distance Korlat could see the dark stain of soot on the walls.

‘Devastation!’ moaned Crone. ‘This is the tale before us! All the way to Maurik. Whilst our alliance disintegrates before our eyes.’

‘It does nothing of the sort,’ rumbled Brood, his frown deepening.

‘Oh? And where is Silverfox? What has happened to the Mhybe? Why do the Grey Swords and Trake’s Legion march so far behind us? Why were the Malazans so eager to leave our sides? And now, Anomander Rake and Moon’s Spawn have vanished! The Tiste Andii—’

‘Are alive,’ Korlat cut in, her own patience frayed at last.

Crone wheeled on her. ‘Are you certain?’

Korlat nodded.
Yet … am I? No. Shall I then seek them out? No. We shall see what is to be seen at Coral. That is all.
Her gaze slowly swung westward.
And you, my dear lover, thief of all my thoughts, will you ever release me?

Please. Do not. Ever.

*   *   *

Riding beside Gruntle, Itkovian watched the two Grey Sword outriders canter towards the Shield Anvil and Destriant.

‘Where are they coming from?’ Gruntle asked.

‘Flanking rearguard,’ Itkovian replied.

‘With news to deliver, it seems.’

‘So it appears, sir.’

‘Well? Aren’t you curious? They’ve both asked you to ride with them – if you’d said yes you’d be hearing that report right now, instead of slouching along with us riffraff. Hey, that’s a thought – I could divide my legion into two companies, call one Riff and the other—’

‘Oh, spare us!’ Stonny snapped behind them.

Gruntle twisted in his saddle. ‘How long have you been in our shadow, woman?’

‘I’m never in your shadow, Gruntle. Not you, not Itkovian. Not any man. Besides, with the sun so low on our right, I’d have to be alongside you to be in your shadow, not that I would be, of course.’

‘So instead,’ the Mortal Sword grinned, ‘you’re the woman behind me.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean, pig?’

‘Just stating a fact, lass.’

‘Really? Well, you were wrong. I was about to make my way over to the Grey Swords, only you two oafs were in the way.’

‘Stonny, this ain’t a road, it’s a plain. How in Hood’s name could we be in your way when you could ride your horse anywhere?’

‘Oafs. Lazy pigs.
Someone
here has to be curious. That someone needs a brain, of course, which is why you’ll both just trot along, wondering what those outriders are reporting, wondering and doing not a damned thing about it. Because you’re both brainless. As for me—’

‘As for you,’ Itkovian said drily, ‘you seem to be talking to us, sir. Indeed, engaged in a conversation—’

‘Which has now ended!’ she snapped, neck-reining her horse to the left, then launching it past them.

They watched her ride towards the other column.

After a moment, Gruntle shrugged, then said, ‘Wonder what she’ll hear.’

‘As do I,’ Itkovian replied.

They rode on, their pace steady if a little slow. Gruntle’s legion marched in their wake, a rabble, clumped like sea-raiders wandering inland in search of a farmhouse to pillage. Itkovian had suggested, some time earlier, that some training might prove beneficial, to which Gruntle had grinned and said nothing.

Trake’s Mortal Sword despised armies; indeed, despised anything even remotely connected to the notion of military practices. He was indifferent to discipline, and had but one officer – a Lestari soldier, fortunately – to manage his now eight-score followers: stony-eyed misfits that he’d laughingly called Trake’s Legion.

Gruntle was, in every respect, Itkovian’s opposite.

‘Here she comes,’ the Mortal Sword growled.

‘She rides,’ Itkovian observed, ‘with much drama.’

‘Aye. A fierceness not unique to sitting a saddle, from all that I’ve heard.’

Itkovian glanced at Gruntle. ‘My apologies. I had assumed you and she—’

‘A few times,’ the man replied. ‘When we were both drunk, alas. Her more drunk than me, I’ll admit. Neither of us talk about it, generally. We stumbled onto the subject once and it turned into an argument about which of us was the more embarrassed – ah, lass! What news?’

She reined in hard, her horse’s hooves kicking up dust. ‘Why in Hood’s name should I tell you?’

‘Then why in Hood’s name did you ride back to us?’

She scowled. ‘I was simply returning to my position, oaf – and you, Itkovian, that had better not be a hint of a smile I see there. If it was, I’d have to kill you.’

‘Most certainly not, sir.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘So?’ Gruntle asked her.

‘What?’

‘The news, woman!’

‘Oh, that. Wonderful news, of course, it’s the only kind we hear these days, right? Pleasing revelations. Happy times—’

‘Stonny.’

‘Old friends, Gruntle! Trundling after us about a league back. Big, bone carriage, pulled by a train that ain’t quite what it seems. Dragging a pair of flatbed wagons behind, too, loaded with junk – did I say junk? I meant loot, of course, including more than one sun-blackened corpse. And an old man on the driver’s seat. With a mangy cat in his lap. Well, what do you know? Old friends, yes?’

Gruntle’s expression had flattened, his eyes suddenly cold. ‘No Buke?’

‘Not even his horse. Either he’s flown, or—’

The Mortal Sword wheeled his horse round and drove his heels into the beast’s flanks.

Itkovian hesitated. He glanced at Stonny and was surprised to see undisguised sympathy softening her face. Her green eyes found him. ‘Catch up with him, will you?’ she asked quietly.

He nodded, lowered the visor of his Malazan helm. The faintest shift in weight and a momentary brush of the reins against his horse’s neck brought the animal about.

His mount was pleased with the opportunity to stretch its legs, and given its lighter burden was able to draw Itkovian alongside Gruntle with two-thirds of a league remaining. The Mortal Sword’s horse was already labouring.

‘Sir!’ Itkovian called. ‘Pace, sir! Else we’ll be riding double on the return!’

Gruntle hissed a curse, made as if to urge his horse yet faster, then relented, straightening in the saddle, reins loose, as the beast’s gallop slowed, fell into a canter.

‘Fast trot now, sir,’ Itkovian advised. ‘We’ll drop to a walk in a hundred paces so she can stretch her neck and open full her air passages.’

‘Sorry, Itkovian,’ Gruntle said a short while later. ‘There’s no heat to my temper these days, but that seems to make it all the deadlier, I’m afraid.’

‘Trake would—’

‘No, don’t even try, friend. I’ve said it before. I don’t give a damn what Trake wants or expects of me, and the rest of you had best stop seeing me that way. Mortal Sword – I hate titles. I didn’t even like being called captain when I guarded caravans. I only used it so I could charge more.’

‘Do you intend to attempt harm upon these travellers, sir?’

‘You well know who they are.’

‘I do.’

‘I had a friend …

‘Aye, the one named Buke. I recall him. A man broken by sorrow. I once offered to take his burdens, but he refused me.’

Gruntle’s head snapped round at that. ‘You did? He did?’

Itkovian nodded. ‘Perhaps I should have been more … direct.’

‘You should have grabbed him by the throat and done it no matter what he wanted. That’s what the new Shield Anvil’s done to that one-eyed First Child of the Dead Seed, Anaster, isn’t it? And now the man rides at her side—’

‘Rides unknowing. He is naught but a shell, sir. There was naught else within him but pain. Its taking has stolen his knowledge of himself. Would you have had that as Buke’s fate as well, sir?’

The man grimaced.

Less than a third of a league remained, assuming Stonny’s claim was accurate, but the roll of the eroded beach ridges reduced the line of sight, and indeed it was the sound that the carriage made, a muted clanking riding the wind, that alerted the two men to its proximity.

They crested a ridge and had to rein in quickly to avoid colliding with the train of oxen.

Emancipor Reese was wearing a broad, smudged bandage, wrapped vertically about his head, not quite covering a swollen jaw and puffy right eye. The cat in his lap screamed at the sudden arrival of the two riders, then clawed its way up the servant’s chest, over the left shoulder, and onto the roof of the ghastly carriage, where it vanished into a fold of K’Chain Che’Malle bone and skin. Reese himself jumped in his seat, almost toppling from his perch before recovering his balance.

‘Bathtardth! Why you do tha? Hood’th b’eth!’

‘Apologies, sir,’ Itkovian said, ‘for startling you so. You are injured—’

‘In’ured? Tho. Tooth. B’oke ith. Olib pith.’

Itkovian frowned, glanced at Gruntle.

The Mortal Sword shrugged. ‘Olive pit, maybe?’

‘Aye!’ Reese nodded vigorously, then winced at the motion. ‘Wha you wanth?’

Gruntle drew a deep breath, then said, ‘The truth, Reese. Where’s Buke?’

The servant shrugged. ‘Gone.’

‘Did they—’

‘Tho! Gone! Thlown!’ He jerked his arms up and down. ‘Thlap thlap! Unnerthan?Yeth?’

Gruntle sighed, glanced away, then slowly nodded. ‘Well enough,’ he said a moment later.

The carriage door opened and Bauchelain leaned out. ‘Why have we stop— ah, the caravan captain … and the Grey Sword, I believe, but where, sir, is your uniform?’

‘I see no need—’

‘Never mind,’ Bauchelain interrupted, climbing out, ‘I wasn’t really interested in your answer. Well, gentlemen, you have business to discuss, perhaps? Indulge my rudeness, if you will, I am weary and short of temper of late, alas. Indeed, before you utter another word, I advise you not to irritate me. The next unpleasant interruption is likely to see my temper snap entirely, and that would be a truly fell thing, I assure you. Now, what would you with us?’

‘Nothing,’ Gruntle said.

The necromancer’s thin, black brows rose fractionally. ‘Nothing?’

‘I came to enquire of Buke.’

‘Buke? Who – oh yes, him. Well, the next time you see him, tell him he is fired.’

‘I’ll do that’

No-one spoke for a moment, then Itkovian cleared his throat. ‘Sir,’ he said to Bauchelain, ‘your servant has broken a tooth and appears to be in considerable discomfort. Surely, with your arts…’

Bauchelain turned and looked up at Reese. ‘Ah, that explains the head garb. I admit I’d been wondering … a newly acquired local fashion, perhaps? But no, as it turns out. Well, Reese, it seems I must once more ask Korbal Broach to make ready for surgery – this is the third such tooth to break, yes? More olives, no doubt. If you still persist in the belief that olive pits are deadly poison, why are you so careless when eating said fruit? Ah, never mind.’

‘Tho thurgery, pleath! Tho! Pleath!’

‘What are you babbling about, man? Be quiet! Wipe that drool away – it’s unsightly. Do you think I cannot see your pain, servant? Tears have sprung from your eyes, and you are white – deathly white. And look at you shake so – not another moment must be wasted! Korbal Broach! Come out, if you will, with your black bag! Korbal!’

The wagon rocked slightly in answer.

Gruntle swung his horse round. Itkovian followed suit.

‘Until later, then, gentlemen!’ Bauchelain called out behind them. ‘Rest assured I am grateful for your advising me of my servant’s condition. As he is equally grateful, no doubt, and were he able to speak coherently I am sure he would tell you so.’

Gruntle lifted a hand in a brusque wave.

They set off to rejoin Trake’s Legion.

Neither spoke for a time, until a soft rumbling from Gruntle drew Itkovian’s attention. The Mortal Sword, he saw, was laughing.

‘What amuses you so, sir?’

‘You, Itkovian. I expect Reese will curse your concern for the rest of his days.’

‘An odd expression of gratitude that would be. Will he not be healed?’

‘Oh, yes, I am sure he will, Itkovian. But here’s something for you to ponder on, if you will. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.’

‘Can you explain that?’

‘Ask Emancipor Reese, the next time you see him.’

‘Very well, I will do just that, sir.’

*   *   *

The stench of smoke clung to the walls, and sufficient old stains blotting the rugs attested to the slaughter of acolytes down hallways and in anterooms and annexes throughout the temple.

Coll wondered if Hood had been pleased to have his own children delivered unto him, within the god’s own sanctified structure.

It appeared to be no easy thing to desecrate a place made sacred to death. The Daru could feel the breath of unabated power, cool and indifferent, as he sat on the stone bench outside the chamber of the sepulchre.

Murillio paced up and down the wide main hallway to his right, stepping into his line of sight then out again, over and over.

In the holy chamber beyond, the Knight of Death was preparing a place for the Mhybe. Three bells had passed since Hood’s chosen servant had walked into the chamber of the sepulchre, the doors closing of their own accord behind him.

Coll waited until Murillio reappeared once more. ‘He can’t let go of those swords.’

Murillio paused, glanced over. ‘So?’

‘Well,’ Coll rumbled, ‘it might well take him three bells to make a bed.’

His friend’s expression filled with suspicion. ‘That was supposed to be funny?’

‘Not entirely. I was thinking in pragmatic terms. I was trying to imagine the physical awkwardness of attempting to do anything with swords stuck to your hands. That’s all.’

Murillio made to say something, changed his mind with a muttered oath, wheeled and resumed his pacing.

They had carried the Mhybe into the temple five days past, settling her into a room that had once belonged to a ranking priest. They had unloaded the wagon and stored their food and water in the cellars amidst the shards of hundreds of shattered jugs and the floor and the walls made sticky with wine, the air thick and cloying and rank as an innkeeper’s apron.