Deadhouse Gates

by Steven Erikson

  He wiped the mud from his eyes, staying low as he looked around for the first time. Wickan horsewarriors, sappers and marines lay amidst dead and dying mounts, all so studded with arrows that the entire landing looked like a reed bed. The nobles' wagons had been cleared from the end of the ford and arrayed in a defensive crescent, although the fighting had pushed beyond them into the forest itself.

  'Who?' Duiker gasped.

  The woman lying beside him grunted. 'Just what's left of the sappers, the marines… and a few surviving Wickans.'

  That's it?'

  'Can't get anyone else across—and besides, the Seventh and at least two of the clans are fighting in the rearguard. We're on our own, Duiker, and if we can't clear these woods…"

  We will be annihilated.

  She reached out to a nearby corpse, dragging it closer to remove the dead Wickan's helm. 'This one looks more your size than mine, old man. Here.'

  'What are we fighting out there?'

  'At least three companies. Mostly archers, though—I think Korbolo wasn't expecting any soldiers at the front of the column. The plan was to use the refugees to block our deployment and stop us from gaining this bank.'

  'As if Korbolo knew Coltaine would reject the offer, but the nobles wouldn't.'

  'Aye. The arrow fire's tailed off—those sappers are pushing them back—gods, they're mayhem! Let's find us some useful weapons and go join the fun.'

  'Go ahead,' Duiker said. 'But here I stay—within sight of the river. I need to see…'

  'You'll get yourself skewered, old man.'

  'I'll risk it. Get going!'

  She hesitated, then nodded and crawled off among the bodies.

  The historian found a round shield and clambered up on the nearest wagon, where he almost stepped on a cowering figure. He stared down at the trembling man. 'Nerhpara.'

  'Save me, please.''

  Ignoring the nobleborn, Duiker turned his attention back to the river.

  The stream of refugees who reached the south bank could not go forward; they began spreading out along the shoreline. Duiker saw a mob of them discover the rope crew for the upstream bridge, and descend on them with a ferocity that disregarded their lack of armour and weapons. The crew were literally torn apart.

  The slaughter had turned the river downstream into a pink mass of stained insects and bodies, and still the numbers grew. Another flaw in Korbolo's plan was revealed as the flights of arrows from the upstream bridge dwindled—the archers had already spent their supply. The floating platform upstream had been allowed to drift, closing the gap until the pikemen finally came into contact with the unarmed civilians on the ford. But they had not accounted for the roaring rage that met them. The refugees had been pushed past fear. Hands were slashed as they closed on the pikeheads, but they would not let go. Others clambered forward in a rush to get to the archers behind the wavering line of pikemen. The bridge sagged beneath the weight, then tilted. A moment later the river was solid with flailing, struggling figures—refugees and Korbolo's companies both—as the bridge tipped and broke apart.

  And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-petalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.

  Another wave of sorcery erupted, and Duiker's head turned at the sound. He saw Sormo, out in the centre of the mass, astride his horse. The power that rolled from him tumbled towards the bridge downstream, striking the rebel soldiers with sparks that scythed like barbed wire. Blood sprayed into the air, and above the bridge the butterflies went from yellow to red and the stained clouds fell in a fluttering blanket.

  But as Duiker watched, four arrows struck the warlock, one driving through his neck. Sormo's horse whipped its head around, screaming at the half-dozen arrows embedded in it. The animal staggered, slewing sideways to the edge of the shallows, then into deep water. Sormo reeled, then slowly slid from the saddle, vanishing beneath the sludge. The horse collapsed on top of him.

  Duiker could not draw breath. Then he saw a thin, lean arm thrust skyward a dozen yards downstream.

  Butterflies mobbed that straining, yearning reach, even as it slowly sank back down, then disappeared. The insects were converging, thousands, then hundreds of thousands. On all sides it seemed that the battle, the slaughter, paused and watched.

  Hood's breath, they've come for him. For his soul. Not crows, not as it should be. Gods below!

  A quavering voice rose from beneath the historian. 'What has happened? Have we won?'

  The breath that Duiker pulled into his lungs was ragged. The mass of butterflies was a seething, frenzied mound on the spot where Sormo had appeared, a mound as high as a barrow and swelling with every moment that passed, with every staggering beat of the historian's heart.

  'Have we won? Can you see Coltaine? Call him here—I would speak to him—'

  The moment when all stood still and silent was broken as a thick flight of Wickan arrows struck the soldiers on the downstream bridge. What Sormo had begun, his clan kin completed: the last of the archers and pikemen went down.

  Duiker saw three squares of infantry dog-trot down the north slope, pulled from the rearguard action to enforce order on the crossing. Wickan horsewarriors of the Weasel Clan rode out from the flanking woods, voicing their ululating victory cries.

  Duiker swung about. He saw Malazan soldiers backing away from cover to cover—a handful of marines and less than thirty sappers. The arrow fire was intensifying, getting closer. Gods, they've already done the impossible—do not demand more of them—

  The historian drew a breath, then climbed up onto the wagon's high bench. 'Everyone!' he shouted to the milling refugees crowding the bank. 'Every able hand! Find a weapon—to the forest, else the slaughter begins again! The archers are retur—'

  He got no further, as the air shook with a savage, bestial roar. Duiker stared down, watching hundreds of civilians rush forward, caring nothing for weapons, intent only on closing with the companies of archers, on answering the day's carnage with a vengeance no less terrible.

  We are all gripped in madness. I have never seen the like nor heard of such a thing—gods, what we have become…

  The waves of refugees swept over the Malazan positions and, unwavering before frantic, devastating flights of arrows from the treeline, plunged into the forest. Shrieks and screams echoed eerily in the air.

  Nethpara clambered into view. 'Where is Coltaine? I demand—'

  Duiker reached down one-handed and gripped the silk scarf wound around the nobleman's neck. He dragged Nethpara closer. The man squealed, scratching uselessly at the historian's hand.

  'Nethpara. He could have let you go. Let you cross. Alone. Under the shelter of Korbolo Dom's glorious mercy. How many have died this day? How many of these soldiers, how many Wickans, have given their lives to protect your hide?'

  'L-let go of me, you foul slave-spawn!'

  A red mist blossomed before Duiker's eyes. He took the nobleman's flabby neck in both hands and began squeezing. He watched Nethpara's eyes bulge.

  Someone battered at his head. Someone yanked at his wrists. Someone wrapped a forearm around his own neck and flexed iron-hard muscles across the throat. The mist dimmed, as if night was falling. The historian watched as hands pried his own from Nethpara's neck, watched as the man fell away, gasping.

  Then dark's descent was done.

  Chapter Seventeen

  One who was many

  On the blood trail

  Came hunting his own voice

  Savage murder

  Sprites buzzing in the sun

  Came hunting his own voice

  But Hood's music is all

  He heard, the siren song

  Called silence.

  Seglora's Account

  Seglora

  The captain had begun swaying, though not in time with the heaving ship. He poured wine all over the table as l as into the four goblets arrayed before him. 'Ordering thick-skulled sailors this way and that makes for a considerable thirst. I expect the
food will be along shortly.'

  Pormqual's treasurer, who did not consider the company worthy of knowing his name, raised painted eyebrows. 'But, Captain, we have already eaten.'

  'Have we? That explains the mess, then, though the mess still has some explaining to do, because it must have been awful. You there,' he said to Kalam, 'you're as solid as any Fenn bear, was that palatable? Never mind, what would you know, anyway? I hear Seven Cities natives grow fruit just so they can eat the larvae in them. Gobble the worm and toss the apple, hey? If you want to know how you folk see the world, it's all there in that one custom. Now that we're all chums, what were we talking about?'

  Salk Elan reached out and collected his goblet, sniffing cautiously before taking a swallow. 'The dear treasurer was surprising us with a complaint, Captain.'

  'Was he now?' The captain leaned over the small table to stare at the treasurer. 'A complaint? Aboard my ship? You bring those to me, sir.'

  'I just have,' the man replied, sneering.

  'And deal with it I shall, as a captain must.' He leaned back with an air of satisfaction. 'Now, what else should we talk about?'

  Salk Elan met Kalam's eye, winked. 'What if we were to touch on the small matter of those two privateers presently pursuing us?'

  'They're not pursuing,' the captain said. He drained his goblet, smacked his lips, then refilled it from the webbed jug. 'They are keeping pace, sir, and that is entirely different, as you must surely grasp.'

  'Well, I admit, I see the distinction less clearly than you do, Captain.'

  'How unfortunate.'

  'You might,' the treasurer rasped, 'endeavour to enlighten us.'

  'What did you say? Lightendeavourus? Extraordinary, man!' He settled back in his seat, a contented expression on his face.

  'They want a stronger wind,' Kalam ventured.

  'Quickening,' the captain said. They want to dance around us, aye, the ale-pissing cowards. Toe to toe, that's how I'd like it, but no, they'd rather duck and dodge.' He swung surprisingly steady eyes on Kalam. That's why we'll take them unawares, come the dawn. Attack! Hard about! Marines prepare to board enemy vessel! I won't truck complaints aboard Ragstopper. Not a one, dammit. The next bleat I hear and the bleater loses a finger. Bleats again, loses another one. And so on. Each one nailed to the deck. Tap tap!'

  Kalam closed his eyes. They had sailed four days now without an escort, the tradewinds pushing them along at a steady six knots. The sailors had run up every sheet of canvas they possessed and the ship sang a chorus of ominous creaks and groans, but the two pirate galleys could still sail circles around Ragstopper.

  And the madman wants to attack.

  'Did you say attack?' the treasurer whispered, his eyes wide 'I forbid it!'

  The captain blinked owlishly at the man. 'Why, sir,' he said in a calm voice, 'I looked into my tin mirror, did I not? It's lost its polish, on my word so it has. Between yesterday and today I plan to take advantage of that.'

  Since the voyage began, Kalam had managed to stay in his cabin for the most part, electing to emerge on deck only at the quietest hour, late in the last watch before dawn. Eating with the crew in the galley had also reduced the number of encounters with either Salk Elan or the treasurer. This night however, the captain had insisted on his joining them at dinner. The appearance of the pirates at midday had made the assassin curious about how the captain would deal with the threat, so he had agreed.

  It was clear that Salk Elan and the treasurer had established a truce of sorts as things never went beyond the occasional sardonic swipe. The exaggerated airs of civil discourse made their efforts at self-control obvious.

  But it was the captain who was the true mystery aboard the Ragstopper. Kalam had heard enough talk in the galley and between the First and Second Mates to gauge that the man was viewed with both respect and some kind of twisted affection. In the manner that you'd view a touchy dog. Pat once and the tail wags, pat twice and lose a hand. He shifted roles with random alacrity, dismissive of propriety. He revealed a sense of humour that yanked taut comprehension. Too long in his company—especially when wine was the drink of choice—and the assassin's head ached with the effort of following the captain's wending ways. What was worse, Kalam sensed a thread of cool purpose within the scattered weave, as if the captain spoke two languages at once, one robust and divergent, the other silken with secrets. I'd swear the bastard's trying to tell me something. Something vital. He'd heard of a certain sorcery, from one of the less common warrens, that could lay a glamour upon a person's mind, a kind of mental block that the victim—in absolute, tortured awareness—could circle round but never manage to penetrate. Ah, now I'm venturing into the absurd. Paranoia's the assassin's bedmate, and no rest comes in that clamouring serpent's nest. Would that I could speak with Quick Ben now—

  '—sleep with your eyes open, man?'

  Kalam started, frowned at the captain.

  'The master of this fine sailing ship was saying,' Salk Elan purred, 'that it's been a strange passing of days since we reached open water. It was an interrogative seeking your opinion, Kalam.'

  'It's been four days since we left Aren Bay,' the assassin growled.

  'Has it now?' the captain asked. 'Are you certain?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Someone keeps knocking over the hisser, you see.'

  'The what?' Oh, the hissing of sand—I'd swear he's making up words as he goes along. 'Are you suggesting you have but one hourglass on Rags topper?'

  'Official time is so kept by a single glass,' Elan said.

  'While none of the others on board agree,' the captain added, filling his goblet yet again. 'Four days… or fourteen?'

  'Is this some kind of philosophic debate?' the treasurer demanded suspiciously.

  'Hardly,' the captain managed to say during a belch. 'We left harbour with the first night of a quarter moon.'

  Kalam tried to think back to the previous night. He'd stood on the forecastle, beneath a brilliantly clear sky. Had the moon already set? No, it rode the horizon, directly beneath the tip of the constellation known as the Dagger. End of a three-quarter moon. But that's impossible.

  'Ten weevils a handful,' the captain went on. 'As good as a hisser in gauging passage. You'd have ten in close on a fortnight, unless the flour was foul from the start, only the cook swears otherwise—'

  'Just as he'd swear he'd cooked us dinner here tonight,' Salk Elan said with a smile, 'though our bellies groan that what we've just eaten was anything but food. In any case, thank you for dispelling the confusion.'

  'Well, sir, you've a point there, sharp enough to prick skin, though mine's thicker than most and I ain't anything if not stubborn.'

  'For which I cannot help but admire you, Captain.'

  What in Hood's name are these two talking about, or, rather, not talking about?

  'A man gets so he can't even trust the beat of his own heart—mind you, I can't count past fourteen in any case, so's I could not help but lose track and tracking's what we're talking about here if I'm not mistaken.'

  'Captain,' the treasurer said, 'you cause me great distress with your words.'

  Salk Elan commented, 'You're not alone in that.'

  'Do I offend you, sir?' The captain's face had reddened as he glared at the treasurer.

  'Offend? No. Baffle. I dare say I am led to conclude that you have lost the grip on your own mind. Thus, to ensure the safety of this ship, I have no choice—'

  'No choice?' the captain erupted, rising from his seat. 'Words and grips like sand. What slips through your fingers can knock you over! I'll show you safety, you sweaty stream of lard!'

  Kalam leaned back clear of the table as the captain went to the cabin door and began struggling with his cloak. Salk Elan had not moved from his seat, watching with a tight smile.

  A moment later the captain flung open the cabin door and barrelled into the passageway, bellowing a call for his First Mate. His boots thumped like fists hammering a wall as he made for the
galley.

  The cabin's door creaked back and forth on its hinges.

  The treasurer's mouth opened and closed, then opened again. 'What choice?' he whispered to no-one in particular.

  'Not yours to make,' Elan drawled.

  The noble swung to him. 'Not mine? And who else, if not the man entrusted with the Aren treasury—'

  'Is that what it's officially called, then? How about Pormqual's ill-gotten loot? Those seals on the crates below have the High Fist's sigil on them, not the Imperial sceptre—'

  And so you have been in the hold, Salk Elan? Interesting.

  'To lay hands upon those crates is punishable by death,' the treasurer hissed.

  Elan sneered his disgust. 'You're doing the dirty work of a thief, so what does that make you?'

  The noble went white. In silence he rose and, using his hands to steady himself as the ship pitched, made his way across the small room, then out into the passageway.

  Salk Elan glanced at Kalam. 'So, my reluctant friend, what do you make of this captain of ours?'

  'Nothing I'd share with you,' Kalam rumbled.

  'Your constant efforts to avoid me have been childish.'

  'Well, it's either that or I kill you outright.'

  'How unpleasant of you, Kalam, after all the efforts I have made on your behalf.'

  The assassin rose. 'Rest assured I'll repay the debt, Salk Elan.'

  'You could do that with your company alone—intelligent conversation aboard this ship is proving hard to come by.'

  'I'll spare a thought in sympathy,' Kalam said, heading to the cabin door.

  'You wrong me, Kalam. I am not your enemy. Indeed, we two are much alike.'

  The assassin paused in the portalway. 'If you're seeking friendship between us, Salk Elan, you've just taken a long step back with that observation.' He stepped out into the passage and made his way forward.

  He emerged onto the main deck and found himself in the midst of furious activity. Gear was being battened down, sailors checking the rigging and others taking in sail. It was past the tenth bell and the night sky was solid clouds, not a star showing.

  The captain reeled down to Kalam's side. 'What did I tell you? Lost its polish!'