House of Chains

by Steven Erikson

  Keneb said nothing.

  A messenger approached on foot. ‘Fist Gamet,’ the man called out, ‘the Adjunct requests your presence.’

  ‘I will keep an eye on the legion,’ Keneb said.

  Gamet nodded and wheeled his horse around. The motion made his head spin for a moment—he was still waking with headaches—then he steadied himself with a deep breath and nodded towards the messenger. They made slow passage through the chaotic array of troops moving to and fro beneath the barked commands of the officers, towards a low hill closest to the basin. Gamet could see the Adjunct astride her horse on that hill, along with, on foot, Nil and Nether. ‘I see them,’ Gamet said to the messenger.

  ‘Aye, sir, I’ll leave you to it, then.’

  Riding clear of the press, Gamet brought his horse into a canter and moments later reined in alongside the Adjunct.

  The position afforded them a clear view of the enemy emplacements, and, just as they observed, so too in turn were they being watched by a small knot of figures atop the central ramp.

  ‘How sharp are your eyes, Fist?’ the Adjunct asked.

  ‘Not sharp enough,’ he replied.

  ‘Korbolo Dom. Kamist Reloe. Six officers. Kamist has quested in our direction, seeking signs of mages. High Mages, specifically. Of course, given that Nil and Nether are with me, they cannot be found by Kamist Reloe’s sorceries. Tell me, Fist Gamet, how confident do you imagine Korbolo Dom feels right now?’

  He studied her a moment. She was in her armour, the visor of her helm lifted, her eyes half-lidded against the bright glare bouncing from the basin’s hard-packed, crackled clay. ‘I would think, Adjunct,’ he replied slowly, ‘that his measure of confidence is wilting.’

  She glanced over. ‘Wilting. Why?’

  ‘Because it all looks too easy. Too overwhelmingly in his favour, Adjunct.’

  She fell silent, returning her gaze to the distant enemy.

  Is this what she wanted me for? To ask that one question?

  Gamet switched his attention to the two Wickans. Nil had grown during the march, leading Gamet to suspect that he would be a tall man in a few years’ time. He wore only a loincloth and looked feral with his wild, unbraided hair and green and black body-paint.

  Nether, he realized with some surprise, had filled out beneath her deer-skin hides, a chubbiness that was common to girls before they came of age. The severity of her expression was very nearly fixed now, transforming what should have been a pretty face into a mien forbidding and burdened. Her black hair was shorn close, betokening a vow of grief.

  ‘Kamist’s questing is done,’ the Adjunct suddenly pronounced. ‘He will need to rest, now.’ She turned in her saddle and by some prearranged signal two Wickan warriors jogged up the slope. Tavore unhitched her sword-belt and passed it to them. They quickly retreated with the otataral weapon.

  Reluctantly, Nil and Nether settled cross-legged onto the stony ground.

  ‘Fist Gamet,’ the Adjunct said, ‘if you would, draw your dagger and spill a few drops from your right palm.’

  Without a word he tugged off his gauntlet, slid his dagger from its scabbard and scored the edge across the fleshy part of his hand. Blood welled from the cut. Gamet held it out, watched as the blood spilled down to the ground.

  Dizziness struck him and he reeled in the saddle a moment before regaining his balance.

  Nether voiced a hiss of surprise.

  Gamet glanced down at her. Her eyes were closed, both hands pressed against the sandy ground. Nil had assumed the same posture and on his face flitted a wild sequence of emotions, fixing at last on fear.

  The Fist was still feeling light-headed, a faint roaring sound filling his skull.

  ‘There are spirits here,’ Nil growled. ‘Rising with anger—’

  ‘A song,’ Nether cut in. ‘Of war, and warriors—’

  ‘New and old,’ her brother said. ‘So very new . . . and so very old. Battle and death, again and again—’

  ‘The land remembers every struggle played out on its surface, on all its surfaces, from the very beginning.’ Nether grimaced, then shivered, her eyes squeezed shut. ‘The goddess is as nothing to this power—yet she would . . . steal.’

  The Adjunct’s voice was sharp. ‘Steal?’

  ‘The warren,’ Nil replied. ‘She would claim this fragment, and settle it upon this land like a parasite. Roots of shadow, slipping down to draw sustenance, to feed on the land’s memories.’

  ‘And the spirits will not have it,’ Nether whispered.

  ‘They are resisting?’ the Adjunct asked.

  Both Wickans nodded, then Nil bared his teeth and said, ‘Ghosts cast no shadows. You were right, Adjunct. Gods, you were right!’

  Right? Gamet wondered. Right about what?

  ‘And will they suffice?’ Tavore demanded.

  Nil shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Only if the Talon Master does what you think he will do, Adjunct.’

  ‘Assuming,’ Nether added, ‘Sha’ik is unaware of the viper in her midst.’

  ‘Had she known,’ Tavore said, ‘she would have separated his head from his shoulders long ago.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Nether replied, and Gamet heard the scepticism in her tone. ‘Unless she and her goddess decided to wait until all their enemies were gathered.’

  The Adjunct returned her gaze to the distant officers. ‘Let us see, shall we?’

  Both Wickans rose, then shared a glance unwitnessed by Tavore.

  Gamet rubbed his uncut hand along his brow beneath the helm’s rim, and his fingers came away dripping with sweat. Something had used him, he realized shakily. Through the medium of his blood. He could hear distant music, a song of voices and unrecognizable instruments. A pressure was building in his skull. ‘If you are done with me, Adjunct,’ he said roughly.

  She nodded without looking over. ‘Return to your legion, Fist. Convey to your officers, please, the following. Units may appear during the battle on the morrow which you will not recognize. They may seek orders, and you are to give them as if they were under your command.’

  ‘Understood, Adjunct.’

  ‘Have a cutter attend to your hand, Fist Gamet, and thank you. Also, ask the guards to return to me my sword.’

  ‘Aye.’ He wheeled his horse and walked it down the slope.

  The headache was not fading, and the song itself seemed to have poisoned his veins, a music of flesh and bone that hinted of madness. Leave me in peace, damn you. I am naught but a soldier. A soldier . . .

  Strings sat on the boulder, his head in his hands. He had flung off the helm but had no memory of having done so, and it lay at his feet, blurry and wavering behind the waves of pain that rose and fell like a storm-tossed sea. Voices were speaking around him, seeking to reach him, but he could make no sense of what was being said. The song had burgeoned sudden and fierce in his skull, flowing through his limbs like fire.

  A hand gripped his shoulder, and he felt a sorcerous questing seep into his veins, tentatively at first, then flinching away entirely, only to return with more force—and with it, a spreading silence. Blissful peace, cool and calm.

  Finally, the sergeant was able to look up.

  He found his squad gathered around him. The hand fixed onto his shoulder was Bottle’s, and the lad’s face was pale, beaded with sweat. Their eyes locked, then Bottle nodded and slowly withdrew his hand.

  ‘Can you hear me, Sergeant?’

  ‘Faint, as if you were thirty paces away.’

  ‘Is the pain gone?’

  ‘Aye—what did you do?’

  Bottle glanced away.

  Strings frowned, then said, ‘Everyone else, back to work. Stay here, Bottle.’

  Cuttle cuffed Tarr and the corporal straightened and mumbled, ‘Let’s go, soldiers. There’s pits to dig.’

  The sergeant and Bottle watched the others head off, retrieving their picks and shovels as they went. The squad was positioned on the south-westernmost island, overlooking dunes that reached
out to the horizon. A single, sufficiently wide corridor lay directly to the north, through which the enemy—if broken and fleeing—would come as they left the basin. Just beyond it lay a modest, flat-topped tel, on which a company of mounted desert warriors were ensconced, the crest dotted with scouts keeping a careful eye on the Malazans. ‘All right, Bottle,’ Strings said, ‘out with it.’

  ‘Spirits, Sergeant. They’re . . . awakening.’

  ‘And what in Hood’s name has that got to do with me?’

  ‘Mortal blood, I think. It has its own song. They remember it. They came to you, Sergeant, eager to add their voices to it. To . . . uh . . . to you.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Strings studied the young mage for a moment, mulling on the taste of that lie, then grimaced and said, ‘You think it’s because I’m fated to die here—at this battle.’

  Bottle looked away once more. ‘I’m not sure, Sergeant. It’s way beyond me . . . this land. And its spirits. And what it all has to do with you—’

  ‘I’m a Bridgeburner, lad. The Bridgeburners were born here. In Raraku’s crucible.’

  Bottle’s eyes thinned as he studied the desert to the west. ‘But . . . they were wiped out.’

  ‘Aye, they were.’

  Neither spoke for a time. Koryk had broken his shovel on a rock and was stringing together an admirable list of Seti curses. The others had stopped to listen. On the northern edge of the island Gesler’s squad was busy building a wall of rubble, which promptly toppled, the boulders tumbling down the far edge. Distant hoots and howls sounded from the tel across the way.

  ‘It won’t be your usual battle, will it?’ Bottle asked.

  Strings shrugged. ‘There’s no such thing, lad. There’s nothing usual about killing and dying, about pain and terror.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant—’

  ‘I know it ain’t, Bottle. But wars these days are fraught with sorcery and munitions, so you come to expect surprises.’

  Gesler’s two dogs trotted past, the huge cattle dog trailing the Hengese Roach as if the hairy lapdog carried its own leash.

  ‘This place is . . . complicated,’ Bottle sighed. He reached down and picked up a large, disc-shaped rock. ‘Eres’al,’ he said. ‘A hand-axe—the basin down there’s littered with them. Smoothed by the lake that once filled it. Took days to make one of these, then they didn’t even use them—they just flung them into the lake. Makes no sense, does it? Why make a tool then not use it?’

  Strings stared at the mage. ‘What are you talking about, Bottle? Who are the Eres’al?’

  ‘Were, Sergeant. They’re long gone.’

  ‘The spirits?’

  ‘No, those are from all times, from every age this land has known. My grandmother spoke of the Eres. The Dwellers who lived in the time before the Imass, the first makers of tools, the first shapers of their world.’ He shook his head, fought down a shiver. ‘I never expected to meet one—it was there, she was there, in that song within you.’

  ‘And she told you about these tools?’

  ‘Not directly. More like I shared it—well, her mind. She was the one who gifted you the silence. It wasn’t me—I don’t have that power—but I asked, and she showed mercy. At least’—he glanced at Strings—‘I gather it was a mercy.’

  ‘Aye, lad, it was. Can you still . . . speak with that Eres?’

  ‘No. All I wanted to do was get out of there—out of that blood—’

  ‘My blood.’

  ‘Well, most of it’s your blood, Sergeant.’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘Belongs to that song. The, uh, Bridgeburners’ song.’

  Strings closed his eyes, settled his head against the boulder behind him. Kimloc, that damned Tanno Spiritwalker in Ehrlitan. I said no, but he did it anyway. He stole my story—not just mine, but the Bridgeburners’—and he made of it a song. The bastard’s gone and given us back to Raraku . . .

  ‘Go help the others, Bottle.’

  ‘Aye, Sergeant.’

  ‘And . . . thanks.’

  ‘I’ll pass that along, when next I meet the Eres witch.’

  Strings stared after the mage. So there’ll be a next time, will there? Just how much didn’t you tell me, lad? He wondered if the morrow would indeed be witness to his last battle. Hardly a welcome thought, but maybe it was necessary. Maybe he was being called to join the fallen Bridgeburners. Not so bad, then. Couldn’t ask for more miserable company. Damn, but I miss them. I miss them all. Even Hedge.

  The sergeant opened his eyes and climbed to his feet, collecting then donning his helm. He turned to stare out over the basin to the northeast, to the enemy emplacements and the dust and smoke of the city hidden within the oasis. You too, Kalam Mekhar. I wonder if you know why you’re here . . .

  The shaman was in a frenzy, twitching and hissing as he scuttled like a crab in dusty circles around the flat slab of bone that steadily blackened on the hearth. Corabb, his mouth filled with a half-dozen of the scarab shells strung round his neck to ward off evil, winced as his chattering teeth crunched down on one carapace, filling his mouth with a bitter taste. He plucked the necklace from his mouth and began spitting out pieces of shell.

  Leoman strode up to the shaman and grabbed the scrawny man by his telaba, lifted him clear off the ground, then shook him. A flurry of cloth and hair and flying spittle, then Leoman set the shaman down once more and growled, ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Armies!’ the old man shrieked, tugging at his nose as if it had just arrived on his face.

  Leoman scowled. ‘Aye, we can see those too, you damned fakir—’

  ‘No! More armies!’ He scrabbled past and ran to the southern crest of the tel, where he began hopping about and pointing at the Malazans entrenching on the island opposite the old drainage channel.

  Leoman made no move to follow. He walked over to where Corabb and three other warriors crouched behind a low wall. ‘Corabb, send another rider to Sha’ik—no, on second thought, you go yourself. Even if she will not bother acknowledging our arrival, I want to know how Mathok’s tribes will be arrayed come the dawn. Find out, once you have spoken with Sha’ik—and Corabb, be certain you speak with her in person. Then return here.’

  ‘I shall do as you command,’ Corabb announced, straightening.

  Twenty paces away the shaman wheeled round and screamed, ‘They are here! The dogs, Leoman! The dogs! The Wickan dogs!’

  Leoman scowled. ‘The fool’s gone mad . . .’

  Corabb jogged over to his horse. He would waste no time saddling the beast, especially if it meant hearing more of the shaman’s insane observations. He vaulted onto the animal, tightened the straps holding the lance crossways on his back, then collected the reins and spurred the animal into motion.

  The route to the oasis was twisting and tortured, winding between deep sand and jagged outcrops, forcing him to slow his mount’s pace and let it pick its own way along the trail.

  The day was drawing to a close, shadows deepening where the path wound its way into high-walled gullies closer to the southwestern edge of the oasis. As his horse scrabbled over some rubble and walked round a sharp bend, the sudden stench of putrefaction reached both animal and man simultaneously.

  The path was blocked. A dead horse and, just beyond it, a corpse.

  Heart thudding, Corabb slipped down from his mount and moved cautiously forward.

  Leoman’s messenger, the one he had sent as soon as the troop had arrived. A crossbow quarrel had taken him on the temple, punching through bone then exploding out messily the other side.

  Corabb scanned the jagged walls to either side. If there’d been assassins stationed there he would already be dead, he reasoned. Probably, then, they weren’t expecting any more messengers.

  He returned to his horse. It was a struggle coaxing the creature over the bodies, but eventually he led the beast clear of them and leapt onto its back once more. Eyes roving restlessly, he continued
on.

  Sixty paces later and the trail ahead opened out onto the sandy slope, beyond which could be seen the dusty mantles of guldindha trees.

  Breathing a relieved sigh, Corabb urged his horse forward.

  Two hammer blows against his back flung him forward. Without stirrups or saddlehorn to grab on to, Corabb threw his arms out around the horse’s neck—even as the animal squealed in pain and bolted. The motion almost jolted loose his panicked grip, and the horse’s right knee cracked hard, again and again, into his helm, until it fell away and the knobby joint repeatedly pounded against his head.

  Corabb held on, even as he continued slipping down, then around, until his body was being pummelled by both front legs. The encumbrance proved sufficient to slow the animal as it reached the slope, and Corabb, one leg dangling, his heel bouncing over the hard ground, managed to pull himself up under his horse’s head.

  Another quarrel cracked into the ground and skittered away off to the left.

  The horse halted halfway up the slope.

  Corabb brought his other leg down, then pivoted around to the opposite side and vaulted onto the animal once more. He’d lost the reins, but closed both fingers in the horse’s mane as he drove his heels into the beast’s flanks.

  Yet another quarrel caromed from the rocks, then hooves were thudding on sand, and sudden sunlight bathed them.

  Directly ahead lay the oasis, and the cover of trees.

  Corabb leaned onto the mount’s neck and urged it ever faster.

  They plunged onto a trail between the guldindhas. Glancing back, he saw a deep rip running down his horse’s left flank, leaking blood. And then he caught sight of his lance, dangling loose now from his back. There were two quarrels embedded in the shaft. Each had struck at a different angle, and the impact must have been nearly simultaneous, since the splits had bound against each other, halting the momentum of both quarrels.