Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  Not a worm. Hundreds of legs, strangely finned, and, even more surprising, the creatures were mechanisms. Not living at all, the metal of their bodies somehow impervious to the acids. The thing twisted about in the grip of the tongs, then stopped moving. She shook it, but it had gone immobile, like a crooked nail. An infestation? She did not think so. No, there were many creatures that worked in concert. The pond of stomach acid had been home to these mechanisms, and they in turn worked in some fashion to the demon’s benefit.

  A hacking cough startled her, and she turned to see the Avower stumble to his feet. Hunched, twisted with arthritis, he shambled over. ‘Samar Dev, the witch! What’s that smell? Not you, I hope. You and me, we’re the same sort, aren’t we just?’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘Oh yes, Samar Dev.’ He scratched at his crotch. ‘We strip the layers of humanity, down to the very bones, but where does humanity end and animal begin? When does pain defeat reason? Where hides the soul and to where does it flee when all hope in the flesh is lost? Questions to ponder, for such as you and me. Oh how I have longed to meet you, to share knowledge—’

  ‘You’re a torturer.’

  ‘Someone has to be,’ he said, offended. ‘In a culture that admits the need for torture, there must perforce be a torturer. A culture, Samar Dev, that values the acquisition of truths more than it does any single human life. Do you see? Oh,’ he added, edging closer to frown down at the demon’s corpse, ‘the justifications are always the same. To save many more lives, this one must be surrendered. Sacrificed. Even the words used disguise the brutality. Why are torture chambers in the crypts? To mask the screams? True enough, but there’s more. This,’ he said, waving one gnarled hand, ‘is the nether realm of humanity, the rotted heart of unpleasantness.’

  ‘I am seeking answers from something already dead. It is not the same—’

  ‘Details. We are questioners, you and I. We slice back the armour to uncover the hidden truth. Besides, I’m retired. They want me to train another, you know, now that the Malazan laws have been struck down and torture’s popular once more. But, the fools they send me! Ah, what is the point? Now, Falah’d Krithasanan, now he was something – you were likely just a child, then, or younger even. My, how he liked torturing people. Not for truths – he well understood that facile rubbish for what it was – facile rubbish. No, the greater questions interested him. How far along can a soul be dragged, trapped still within its broken body, how far? How far until it can no longer crawl back? This was my challenge, and oh how he appreciated my artistry!’

  Samar Dev looked down to see that the rest of the mechanisms had all ceased to function. She placed the one she had retrieved in a small leather pouch, then repacked her kit, making sure to include the eye lenses. She’d get them to burn the rest of the body – well away from the city, and upwind.

  ‘Will you not dine with me?’

  ‘Alas, I cannot. I have work to do.’

  ‘If only they’d bring your guest down here. Toblakai. Oh, he would be fun, wouldn’t he?’

  She paused. ‘I doubt I could talk him into it, Avower.’

  ‘The Falah’d has been considering it, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. I think it would be a mistake.’

  ‘Well, those things are not for us to question, are they?’

  ‘Something tells me Toblakai would be delighted to meet you, Avower. Although it would be a short acquaintance.’

  ‘Not if I have my way, Samar Dev!’

  ‘Around Karsa Orlong, I suspect, only Karsa Orlong has his way.’

  She returned to find the Teblor warrior poring over her collection of maps, which he’d laid out on the floor in the hallway. He had brought in a dozen votive candles, now lit and set out around him. He held one close as he perused the precious parchments. Without looking up, he said, ‘This one here, witch. The lands and coast west and north… I was led to believe the Jhag Odhan was unbroken, that the plains ran all the way to the far-lands of Nemil and the Trell, yet here, this shows something different.’

  ‘If you burn holes in my maps,’ Samar Dev said, ‘I will curse you and your bloodline for all eternity.’

  ‘The Odhan sweeps westward, it seems, but only in the south. There are places of ice marked here. This continent looks too vast. There has been a mistake.’

  ‘Possibly,’ she conceded. ‘Since that is the one direction I have not travelled, I can make no claim as to the map’s accuracy. Mind you, that one was etched by Othun Dela Farat, a century ago. He was reputed to be reliable.’

  ‘What of this region of lakes?’ he asked, pointing to the northerly bulge along the coast, west of Yath Alban.

  She set her equipment down, then, sighing, she crouched at his side. ‘Difficult to cross. The bedrock is exposed there, badly folded, pocked with lakes and only a few, mostly impassable rivers. The forest is spruce, fir and pine, with lowlying thickets in the basins.’

  ‘How do you know all that if you have never been there?’

  She pointed. ‘I am reading Dela’s notes, there, along the border. He also says he found signs suggesting there were people living there, but no contact was ever made. Beyond lies the island kingdom of Sepik, now a remote subject of the Malazan Empire, although I would be surprised if the Malazans ever visited. The king was clever enough to send delegates proposing conditions of surrender, and the Emperor simply accepted.’

  ‘The mapmaker hasn’t written that much.’

  ‘No, some of that information was mine. I have heard, now and then, certain odd stories about Sepik. There are, it seems, two distinct populations, one the subject of the other.’ She shrugged at his blank look. ‘Such things interest me.’ Then frowned, as it became obvious that the distant expression on the giant’s tattooed visage was born of something other than indifference. ‘Is something wrong?’

  Karsa Orlong bared his teeth. ‘Tell me more of this Sepik.’

  ‘I am afraid I have exhausted my knowledge.’

  Scowling at her answer, he hunched down over the map once more. ‘I shall need supplies. Tell me, is the weather the same as here?’

  ‘You are going to Sepik?’

  ‘Yes. Tell the Falah’d that I demand equipment, two extra horses, and five hundred crescents in silver. Dried foods, more waterskins. Three javelins and a hunting bow with thirty arrows, ten of them bird-pointed. Six extra bowstrings and a supply of fletching, a brick of wax—’

  ‘Wait! Wait, Karsa Orlong. Why would the Falah’d simply gift you all these things?’

  ‘Tell him, if he does not, I will stay in this city.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ She considered for a time, then asked, ‘Why are you going to Sepik?’

  He began rolling up the map. ‘I want this one—’

  ‘Sorry, no. It is worth a fortune—’

  ‘I will return it.’

  ‘No, Karsa Orlong.’ She straightened. ‘If you are prepared to wait, I will copy it – on hide, which is more resilient—’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘I don’t know. A few days…’

  ‘Very well, but I am getting restless, witch.’ He handed her the rolled-up map and walked into the other chamber. ‘And hungry.’

  She stooped once more to gather in the other maps. The candles she left alone. Each one was aspected to a local, minor god, and the flames had, one and all, drawn the attention of the host of spirits. This hallway was crowded with presences, making the air taut, bridling, since many of them counted others as enemies. Yet, she suspected, it had been more than just the flickering flames that had earned the regard of the spirits. Something about Toblakai himself…

  There were mysteries, she believed, swirling in Karsa Orlong’s history. And now, the spirits drawn close, close and… frightened…

  ‘Ah,’ she whispered, ‘I see no choice in the matter. None at all…’ She drew out a belt-knife, spat on the blade, then began waving the iron through the flame of each candle.

  The spirits howl
ed in her mind, outraged at this unexpected, brutal imprisonment. She nodded. ‘Yes, we mortals are cruel…’

  ‘Three leagues,’ Quick Ben said under his breath.

  Kalam scratched at the stubble on his chin. Some old wounds – that enkar’al at the edge of the Whirlwind’s wall had torn him up pretty bad – were aching after the long forced march back towards the Fourteenth Army. After what they had seen in the warren, no-one was in the mood to complain, however. Even Stormy had ceased his endless griping. The squad was hunkered down behind the assassin and the High Mage, motionless and virtually invisible in the darkness.

  ‘So,’ Kalam mused, ‘do we wait for them here, or do we keep walking?’

  ‘We wait,’ Quick Ben replied. ‘I need the rest. In any case, we all more or less guessed right, and the trail isn’t hard to follow. Leoman’s reached Y’Ghatan and that’s where he’ll make his stand.’

  ‘And us with no siege equipment to speak of.’

  The wizard nodded. ‘This could be a long one.’

  ‘Well, we’re used to that, aren’t we?’

  ‘I keep forgetting, you weren’t at Coral.’

  Kalam settled down with his back against the ridge’s slope and pulled free a flask. He drank then handed it to the High Mage. ‘As bad as the last day at Pale?’

  Quick Ben sipped, then made a face. ‘This is water.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Pale… we weren’t fighting anyone. Just collapsing earth and raining rocks.’

  ‘So, the Bridgeburners went down fighting.’

  ‘Most of Onearm’s Host went down fighting,’ Quick Ben said. ‘Even Whiskeyjack,’ he added. ‘His leg gave out under him. Mallet won’t forgive himself for that, and I can’t say I’m surprised.’ He shrugged in the gloom. ‘It was messy. A lot went wrong, as usual. But Kallor turning on us… that we should have foreseen.’

  ‘I’ve got a space on my blade for a notch in his name,’ Kalam said, retrieving the flask.

  ‘You’re not the only one, but he’s not an easy man to kill.’

  Sergeant Gesler edged into view. ‘Saw you two passing something.’

  ‘Just water,’ Kalam said.

  ‘The last thing I wanted to hear. Well, don’t mind me.’

  ‘We were discussing the siege to come,’ the assassin said. ‘Could be a long one.’

  ‘Even so,’ Gesler said with a grunt, ‘Tavore’s a patient woman. We know that much about her, anyway.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ Quick Ben asked.

  ‘You’ve talked with her more than any of us, High Mage. She keeps her distance. No-one really seems to know what she is, behind the title of Adjunct. Nobleborn, aye, and from Unta. From House Paran.’

  Kalam and Quick Ben exchanged glances, then the assassin pulled out a second flask. ‘This one ain’t water,’ he said, tossing it to the sergeant. ‘We knew her brother. Ganoes Paran. He was attached to the Bridgeburners, rank as captain, just before we infiltrated Darujhistan.’

  ‘He led the squads into Coral,’ Quick Ben said.

  ‘And died?’ Gesler asked after pulling at the flask.

  ‘Most everyone died,’ answered the High Mage. ‘At any rate, he wasn’t an embarrassment as far as officers go. As for Tavore, well, I’m in the dark as much as the rest of you. She’s all edges, but they’re for keeping people away, not cutting them. At least from what I’ve seen.’

  ‘She’s going to start losing soldiers at Y’Ghatan,’ Kalam said.

  No-one commented on that observation. Different commanders reacted in different ways to things like that. Some just got stubborn and threw more and more lives away. Others flinched back and if nothing then happened, the spirit of the army drained away. Sieges were battles of will, for the most part, along with cunning. Leoman had shown a capacity for both in this long pursuit west of Raraku. Kalam wasn’t sure what Tavore had shown at Raraku – someone else had done most of the killing for her, for the entire Fourteenth, in fact.

  Ghosts. Bridgeburners… ascended. Gods, what a chilling thought. They were all half-mad when alive, and now… ‘Quick,’ Kalam said, ‘those ghosts at Raraku… where are they now?’

  ‘No idea. Not with us, though.’

  ‘Ghosts,’ Gesler said. ‘So the rumours were true – it wasn’t no sorcerous spell that slaughtered the Dogslayers. We had unseen allies – who were they?’ He paused, then spat. ‘You both know, don’t you, and you’re not telling. Fiddler knows, too, doesn’t he? Never mind. Everybody’s got secrets and don’t bother asking me to share mine. So that’s that.’ He handed the flask back. ‘Thanks for the donkey piss, Kalam.’

  They listened as he crawled back to rejoin his squad.

  ‘Donkey piss?’ Quick Ben asked.

  ‘Ground-vine wine, and he’s right, it tastes awful. I found it at the Dogslayer camp. Want some?’

  ‘Why not? Anyway, when I said the ghosts weren’t with us, I think I was telling the truth. But something is following the army.’

  ‘Well, that’s just great.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Hush! I hear—’

  Figures rose from behind the ridge. Gleaming, ancient armour, axes and scimitars, barbaric, painted faces – Khundryl Burned Tears. Swearing, Kalam settled back down, resheathing his long-knives. ‘That was a stupid move, you damned savages—’

  One spoke: ‘Come with us.’

  Three hundred paces up the road waited a number of riders, among them the Adjunct Tavore. Flanked by the troop of Khundryl Burned Tears, Kalam, Quick Ben and Gesler and his squad approached the group.

  The misshapen moon now cast down a silvery light on the land – it was looking rougher round the edges, Kalam realized, as if the surrounding darkness was gnawing at it – he wondered that he’d not noticed before. Had it always been like that?

  ‘Good evening, Adjunct,’ Quick Ben said as they arrived.

  ‘Why have you returned?’ she demanded. ‘And why are you not in the Imperial Warren?’

  With Tavore were the Fists, the Wickan Temul, Blistig, Keneb and Tene Baralta, as well as Nil and Nether. They looked, one and all, to have been recently roused from sleep, barring the Adjunct herself.

  Quick Ben shifted uneasily. ‘The warren was being used… by something else. We judged it unsafe, and we concluded you should be told of that as soon as possible. Leoman is now in Y’Ghatan.’

  ‘And you believe he will await us there?’

  ‘Y’Ghatan,’ Kalam said, ‘is a bitter memory to most Malazans – those that care to remember, anyway. It is where the First—’

  ‘I know, Kalam Mekhar. You need not remind me of that. Very well, I shall assume your assessment is correct. Sergeant Gesler, please join the Khundryl pickets.’

  The marine’s salute was haphazard, his expression mocking.

  Kalam watched Tavore’s eyes follow the sergeant and his squad as they headed off. Then she fixed her gaze on Quick Ben once more.

  ‘High Mage.’

  He nodded. ‘There were… Moon’s Spawns in the Imperial Warren. Ten, twelve came into sight before we retreated.’

  ‘Hood take us,’ Blistig muttered. ‘Floating fortresses? Has that white-haired bastard found more of them?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Fist,’ Quick Ben said. ‘Anomander Rake has settled in Black Coral, now, and he abandoned Moon’s Spawn, since it was falling to pieces. No, I believe the ones we saw in the warren have their, uh, original owners inside.’

  ‘And who might they be?’ Tavore asked.

  ‘K’Chain Che’Malle, Adjunct. Long-Tails or Short-Tails. Or both.’

  ‘And why would they be using the Imperial Warren?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Quick Ben admitted. ‘But I have some notions.’

  ‘Let us hear them.’

  ‘It’s an old warren, effectively dead and abandoned, although, of course, not nearly as dead or abandoned as it first seems. Now, there is no known warren attributed to the K’Chain Che’Malle, but that does not mean on
e never existed.’

  ‘You believe the Imperial Warren was originally the K’Chain Che’Malle warren?’

  The High Mage shrugged. ‘It’s possible, Adjunct.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Well, wherever the fortresses are going, they don’t want to be seen.’

  ‘Seen by whom?’

  ‘That I don’t know.’

  The Adjunct studied the High Mage for a long moment, then she said, ‘I want you to find out. Take Kalam and Gesler’s squad. Return to the Imperial Warren.’

  The assassin slowly nodded to himself, not at all surprised at this insane, absurd command. Find out? Precisely how?

  ‘Have you any suggestions,’ Quick Ben asked, his voice now strangely lilting, as it always was when he struggled against speaking his mind, ‘on how we might do that?’

  ‘As High Mage, I am certain you can think of some.’

  ‘May I ask, why is this of particular importance to us, Adjunct?’

  ‘The breaching of the Imperial Warren is important to all who would serve the Malazan Empire, would you not agree?’

  ‘I would, Adjunct, but are we not engaged in a military campaign here? Against the last rebel leader in Seven Cities? Are you not about to lay siege to Y’Ghatan, wherein the presence of a High Mage, not to mention the empire’s most skilled assassin, might prove pivotal to your success?’

  ‘Quick Ben,’ Tavore said coolly, ‘the Fourteenth Army is quite capable of managing this siege without your assistance, or that of Kalam Mekhar.’

  All right, that clinches it. She knows about our clandestine meeting with Dujek Onearm and Tayschrenn. And she does not trust us. Probably with good reason.

  ‘Of course,’ Quick Ben said, with a modest bow. ‘I trust the Burned Tears can resupply our soldiers, then. I request we be permitted to rest until dawn.’

  ‘Acceptable.’

  The High Mage turned away, his eyes momentarily meeting Kalam’s own. Aye, Quick, she wants me as far away from her back as possible. Well, this was the Malazan Empire, after all. Laseen’s empire, to be more precise. But Tavore, it’s not me you have to worry about…