The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire)

by Ian C. Esslemont

  At least a few of his staff mustered the effort to murmur, ‘Yes, sir.’

  His haunting the field, scanning in turn through Meanas then Mockra, paid off when Possum sensed his quarry to the north-west. Moving quickly through Shadow he arrived on the darkened slope to see Coil bent over still forms lying twisted in the grass – a full Claw Hand. Damn the woman! They need all their strength and here she is eliminating rivals! That is more than enough justification…Drawing his blades he launched himself forward through Shadow. Just as he arrived her own senses moved her to twist, but not quite quickly enough to avoid the thrusting iron as it entered through her ribs in the back and front, puncturing lung and pricking her heart. He wriggled the knives, lacerating the organs to make sure of it.

  Coil stared back at him, stunned, horrified, eyes full of the knowledge of her own coming death. ‘You fool…’ she breathed. He thought nothing of such death-babblings. Strange things are said as life flees. Curses, claims to innocence, innermost longings. ‘These…Mallick’s…I was all that stood between them…and her.’

  Possum withdrew the blades, straightening. What?

  Life dimmed in the woman’s dark eyes and she fell. She smiled, her teeth red with blood. ‘Chance,’ she gasped, chuckling ruefully. ‘Chance…’ Her shape writhed, blurring, changing. Possum recognized artistry of high Mockra – and that far greater than his – until the body resolved itself clearly once more for him to see lying at his feet the fat messy form of High Mage Havva Gulen.

  Soliel forgive him! What had he done? Why hadn’t she told him? Told anyone? Because – fool! – she was running her own game just as he. Now what? First, go! Let the fog of war obscure all. He raised his Warren and stepped into Shadow—

  To be hammered down by a blunt blow to his side.

  He lay gasping amid dirt and clumps of sharp cactus-like grasses that gouged at his exposed skin. A tall thin shape loomed over him. Blinking, he made out a dead ravaged face of desiccated skin, peeled-back lips, yellowed teeth and empty sockets above tattered torn armour and hanging rags. An Imass? Here?

  The Imass reached down, grasped a handful of his shirt and pulled him upright. ‘Your trespassings annoy me,’ the thing hissed. ‘Shadow is not to be used so lightly.’ The being shook him like a child. ‘Now go, and do not return.’ And it thrust him away.

  Possum staggered, righted himself. He straightened his clothes. ‘And who are you?’

  The Imass – was it, though? – clasped a fist of bone and sinew to the sword sheathed at its back. ‘Go! Keep your disputes out of Shadow!’

  ‘Yes! Yes.’ And Possum waved, removing himself from the Warren. The night slope reasserted itself around him. The cacophony of battle returned. Who – what – in the Enchantress’s Name had that been? Renegade Imass? Ascendant of some kind? Revenant? Never mind. Irrelevant. Focus! He attempted to centre himself, calm his breath. Gods, what had he done! Slain the High Mage. A woman who claimed to be helping! Drop it, man. Think of your own back. According to Havva, Mallick held the Claw while he was the puppet! What options did he have? Laseen! She was all that was left to him. He had to reach her.

  Possum summoned his Mockra Warren. Shortly afterwards just another soldier of uncertain allegiance scrabbled hunched across the slopes. He was in the west and found the field now commanded by the Guard. The Avowed had entered the fray, sweeping all before them. Skirmishers and Imperial heavies still ran in clumps here and there like field mice, but the only solid formations were Guard squares, and these far separated as a precaution against mage assault. In the east, the cadre mage’s deep unmitigated darkness still hung like a flat cloud over his hillock, apparantly doing nothing – a slowly turning vortex of night – while Malazan forces coalesced around the mage-protected strongpoint. To the south-east the tall silver dragon banner of the Guard was advancing before a broadening phalanx.

  Just then from the north a brilliant yellow-orange light illuminated the darkness – the Imperial pavilion bursting aflame. It pushed back the night for a half-league all around. The flames climbed like those of an immense bonfire, a celebration of light and vitality, if short-lived. Possum stared, his arms falling to his sides. Oh, Cowl! Master-stroke! So much for such careful preparations and precautions! I bow before your unbending ruthlessness.

  What now for poor Possum? Imperial forces routed, the pavilion aflame, and he himself assassin of the Imperial High Mage. What could possibly be left? Was not all lost? A giddy, almost fey mood took him and he laughed aloud. He felt like dancing amid the dead. His anxious oh-so-important worries of rivals amid the order? Utterly irrelevant! A life-time of scheming, positioning, manipulating? A life wasted! His own ambitions, hopes, dreams? Completely thwarted!

  He walked down on to the field between the fallen, laughing aloud. Come Cowl! Come Lacy, Tarkhan or Isha! Let us put an end to the comic tragedy!

  Nait knelt in the trampled grass just up from the trench together with a mixed collection of sergeants and officers from three different brigades. Captains Tinsmith and Jay K’epp, or Captain Kepp as everyone called him, and a battered Moranth Gold who gave the name Blossom, were the highest ranking officers present; Commander Braven Tooth was reportedly still active but elected to remain in the field to help rally splintered elements; the Sword was reportedly wounded somewhere amid the carnage of the centre strongpoint where Urko, it was rumoured, was organizing resistance.

  Captain Tinsmith lay having his slashed leg re-bandaged while Kepp sat silently by – he could only sit silently as the fist of an Avowed had shattered his jaws.

  Of the lesser officers and sergeants present, Nait shared nods with Least, Lim and others, and watched while these conferred in whispers and grunts. Everyone was whispering because they squatted on the border of the Darkness. All was quiet here; even the battle’s roar just a few paces away was a feeble distant murmur. And it was cold; Nait’s damp sweat-soaked shirt and padding chilled him. He knew of course what was coming before they said a thing. So he shared an all-suffering roll of the eyes with Least when Tinsmith called out, ‘Sergeant Jumpy, a word.’

  He jogged up and knelt on his haunches. ‘Aye.’

  ‘We want you to go up and talk to him.’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ up there to talk to him. You go.’

  A savage glare from the old sergeant, now captain. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed – I can’t walk.’

  ‘Then Kepp, here.’

  Through clenched teeth: ‘He…can’t…talk.’

  ‘Then Blossom, here.’

  ‘He doesn’t speak Talian!’

  Fucking troop of carnival clowns, we are. Fucking hopeless. ‘Fine!’

  Tinsmith stroked one side of his long silver moustache, smiled evilly. ‘He’s your squad mage.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He straightened, grunting and wincing – so tired, and things ain’t even come to a head yet – and started up the slope. The grass crackled brittle with hoarfrost under his old falling-apart sandals. The dark was extraordinary, unrelieved, yet he could still see and he thought of Heuk’s swill – the iron tang of which still caked his tongue. It was as if he were wrapped in layers of the thickest, darkest, finest cloth imaginable. Sable, maybe, he decided, though he’d never seen or touched it. The chill bit at him; lacings of frost appeared on the iron backings of his gauntlets.

  ‘Heuk!’ The dark seemed to swallow his voice. A silence answered; but it was not a true silence. Something filled it. He strained to listen: the faintest rumbling and rattle of chain? Deep reverberations such as wheels groaning somewhere in the dark? ‘Heuk?’

  ‘Here.’

  Nait started; the fellow was practically kneeling right before him.

  ‘Ah, you all right?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Why’re you kneeling there?’

  ‘I was giving thanks, of course.’

  ‘Ah.’

  The mage pushed himself to his feet, weaving slightly. He was a sight. Blood dried black, or what appeared black in this strange pl
ace, covered his face and shoulders, and had run in streaks down his robes. Oddly, he seemed taller and straighter than before. ‘What is it?’ he asked, as if there was nothing strange in any of this.

  ‘Ah, well. The boys down below want you to know we have Avowed headed our way. An’ I guess, they’re worried. C’n you handle them?’

  ‘I will give it everything I possess,’ the man said, sounding more lucid than Nait could ever recall. But it was unnerving as well: he was so calm, his gaze so steady and self-possessed. And that eerie all-black pupil, iris and orb.

  ‘Ah! Great! Everyone’ll be happy to hear that. We’ll keep them off your back then.’

  ‘I know you will, Nait. Good luck to you. I will do what I can to protect all of you. If I am overcome, there will be no mistaking it.’

  ‘Right.’ Nait almost saluted. Strange how an aura of unassuming command seemed to have suddenly enveloped the old bird. After a sort of half-bow, Nait started down the slope. He had no idea of where the trench was, of course, as the dark was so unremitting – yet he could see to walk in it. He decided it must’ve been that sip from the jug.

  It all thrust itself at him in one pace as it had before: the yells, clash of weaponry, rattle of shields. Hands pulled him down and he crouched, blinking. Far down the modest slope, curving arcs of layered defences of heavy infantry behind shields protected a screen of skirmishers who took turns stepping up to fire then withdrawing. Behind these, an inner defence of Moranth Gold and more Malazan heavies, and behind these the trench where a dense thicket of crossbowmen and women, skirmishers and saboteurs, rained a punishing hail of bolts down on the ranks of Guardsmen pressing the defences.

  Yet so few. So few left on both sides. Where was everyone? Could the fallen number so many? Thousands remained in the centre, though, of course, and in the west. Thankfully, the Guard elements here had been reduced to so few that all they could do was harass and pin down – yet why do more? Why bloody themselves further cracking this hard nut when all they had to do was wait for their Avowed to arrive and break us open for them?

  Yells went up around the curve of the defensive line as two figures were spotted charging the trench. Nait jumped up, running, ‘Hold fire! Hold fire!’ The two shouldered aside closing regulars, straight-armed Moranth Gold from their path, and tumbled into the trench. Nait arrived as they straightened, sharing mad grins. ‘You damn fools!’ he snarled. ‘You could’ve gotten yourselves killed.’

  The shorter of the two, Master Sergeant Temp, wearing an ox’s load of layered mail and banded iron armour, flinched back his grey-stubbled chin behind the cheek-guards of his helmet. ‘Why, it’s our old friend Sergeant Jumpy himself. Sounds like he’s gone all responsible on us, Ferrule. Command does that, I hear.’

  The two climbed up out of the trench. ‘I told you, it ain’t Ferrule no more,’ the other, the burly Seti, complained. ‘It’s…’ and his thick brows clenched in concentration, ‘…Bear.’ His face lit up, all pleased. ‘Yeah, Bear.’

  ‘Bear? That’s just plain stupid. Don’t you have any imagination? How about…Dainty?’

  The Seti struck Temp a blow on his chest that would’ve broken Nait’s ribs. ‘No! That don’t take any imagination – that’s just saying the opposite. Like Rock.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, Rock. I forgot about that guy. Lady, could he run!’

  ‘Hey! Hey!’

  The two glared at Nait. ‘What?’

  ‘What in the Abyss are you two doing here?’

  Temp shrugged, winking. ‘We heard this was the place to be.’

  Oh great! They were gonna get hammered.

  Almost as if reading Nait’s thoughts, silence gathered over the lines. The Guardsmen had pulled back all around the length of the curving front. Figures pushed forward to the front of the makeshift Guard shieldwall: both glowing like miniature suns to Nait’s blood-enhanced vision. Here we go! Damned Avowed mages come to answer the challenge. Through the blazing auras surrounding them he could just make them out: a man leaning on a staff, twisted-looking like he’d been wounded bad, or had survived childhood rickets. The other was a Dal Hon woman in thick dark robes gathered at one shoulder, her hair bunched and wild.

  The men and women around Nait shouted, pointing off to the side. He squinted into the night lit by fitful fires over the field cluttered with broken equipment and piled bodies. A long column of soldiers was marching by and at their fore a tall banner, dark with the bright silver dragon rampant. Skinner circling around to head north. Why? Was he that confident of his mages?

  Temp struck Ferrule’s, or Bear’s, shoulder, motioning to the distant banner. ‘There’s our boy.’

  ‘What? Circlin’ around?’ The Seti was affronted. ‘Fener take it! After all the trouble we went to.’

  ‘C’mon,’ the master sergeant called, and jumped the trench. ‘He’s gettin’ away.’

  ‘Wait!’ Nait called but they were gone, jogging hunched down the hillside like two boulders launched against the Guardsmen line. They crashed into it and kept going, men falling backwards before them, weapons flying, to disappear into the night. ‘Shit!’

  It had got perceptibly colder, as if the darkness were gathering itself for what was to come. The two mages in Nait’s sight raised their arms. Crossbow bolts flew at them like a hailstorm but none came near. From the Dal Hon woman’s position pressure mounted against Nait like a wind that was no wind. Waves of it advanced up the hill before the woman, each stronger than the last. First they pressed the broken grass stalks flat. The next waves gouged the stalks and dense root matrix from the ground. The next then began pushing a ridge of loosened dirt up the hill like a chisel. Just in time the trench was abandoned by scrambling men and women as it collapsed, pushed back and filled by the shifting earth. Some soldiers fell, hands clutching at their ears, helmets torn off. Nait fell to his knees. Hunched, he glimpsed much worse appearing before the other Avowed mage. In a slow advance up the slope soldiers fell as if scythed, shrieking, gagging. They writhed in wordless agony, limbs twisting up like drying roots. The sight brought Nait’s gorge to his throat. He fell to his hands and knees and vomited.

  And just two on this side! Two of how many all around the refuge? Four? Five? Had all the soldiers assembled here just to pile the hill in dead? Something tickled his hand – a black snake. He flinched away, his hand passing through the snake. What?

  It was no snake; its length ran all the way up the hill and it was weaving down through the grass. Others followed, slithering down around him, making for the Dal Hon mage. Nait pushed himself to his feet, wiped his mouth. ‘Saboteurs!’ he bellowed louder than he had ever before. ‘Ready munitions!’

  Weak calls answered him up and down the line. He readied one of his few remaining sharpers. The Dal Hon mage slammed her hands together before her, fist to palm, and a bell-like reverberation sounded, tearing Nait’s hearing from him. The ground moved beneath his feet like the sea. Malazan and Gold heavies buckled as waves seemed to pass through them shattering armour, bursting chests. Lines of soldiery heaved backwards as if rammed. Nait threw himself down into the loose soil of the collapsed trench. It felt as if a sledgehammer struck every inch of his body: his feet, his shins, his knees, thighs, hips, stomach, chest and head. Something punched him down into the yielding earth. Not only did he have his breath hammered from him, he lost the ability to inhale. Dazed, punch-drunk, he flailed in a blind panic, dug himself up to stand, tottering. Fucking bitch! Where was she! He’ll ram this beauty up her – there she was! The glowing bitch!

  Something warm was soaking his neck and shirt front. He pressed a gauntleted hand to his neck and it slipped up his slick chin and over his mouth and nose to come away clotted with blood and dirt. He eyed the bloodied leather in horror, then fixed his eyes on the mage.

  ‘Throw!’ he roared, his eyes tearing, blood flowing from his nose and mouth, dripping from his chin. ‘Throw, throw, throw!’ He heaved the sharper, the effort unbalancing him and he fell to lie groaning at the pain.


  The peppering burst of munitions brought a smile to his face. Got the bitch! Must’ve! It seemed to him that a shriek followed the eruptions, but not one of pain, a cry of soul-rending surprise and utter terror.

  After a time soldiers lifted him up; he recognized Jawl, Kibb and Brill. ‘What happened?’ he croaked and spat out a mouthful of blood and catarrh.

  ‘Drove ’em off,’ said Jawl.

  ‘Blew ’em up?’

  ‘Naw. Was the dark. Looked like it actually tried to eat them. They jumped like Hood himself had snuck up and goosed them with his bony finger. They ran.’

  Maybe not his bony finger, Jawl. ‘Get me up.’

  Brill and Kibb raised him to his feet. ‘What happened to you, Sarge?’ Kibb said. ‘You look like someone beat you all over with boards.’

  ‘Tell May to load the lobber – toss all we got at the Guard column, break ’em.’

  ‘Lobber got broke, Sarge,’ Brill said sadly.

  Oh, for the sake of Fener! ‘Then get them firing – fire! Now!’ He pushed both away.

  ‘OK, sheesh!’ said Kibb. He asked Brill as they went: ‘Is he always like this after a fight?’

  Nait staggered up the hill. The dark and cold was the same. The smeared blood, sweat and grime began to solidify on his armour. ‘Heuk!’ Silence. He pulled a small skin of water from his belt, found it had burst, threw it aside. ‘Heuk!’ After just two paces more he suddenly burst in upon two figures near the flat crest, one lying curled as if dead or asleep, the other standing over him. It was the standing figure that captured Nait’s attention. He’d never seen a Tiste Andii, but had heard them described often enough. This one resembled such: tall, black as night, almond eyes, long straight shimmering black hair. The calm, almost contemplative expression that Nait had seen upon Heuk rested now in this man’s features. He wore a coat of the finest mail that descended all the way to his ankles, shimmering like night itself. And it seemed to Nait that the figure was not entirely there; he could see through it. Something hung at its side. Nait almost looked there but pulled his gaze away in time: a void hung there yammering terror at him. It seemed to suck in the night. The figure inclined his head to him.