She hefted it, frowning. ‘Not much …’
‘My companion may have some coin as well.’ A noncommittal grunt. ‘Where are we headed, may I ask?’
‘East to Belid. Five days’ sail.’
‘We’re grateful.’
The woman grunted again, letting loose a stream of smoke. She clearly itched to ask their background and what lay behind their flight, but was also clearly old and canny enough to know she’d get no satisfaction. She nodded instead in a guarded, vaguely welcoming way, and continued on.
The bone-mender, Elia, thumped herself down next to him on the burlap-wrapped cargo tied down on the deck. ‘What think you of our captain, then?’
‘Rare to see a woman captain.’
‘Not at all here in Falar. Curaca ships are all owned and run by the city an’ the city demands profits an’ tight management. Men captains just get drunk or gamble away the margins. Not like the womenfolk. What say you to that?’ The old woman cuffed his shoulder.
‘I’d say that anyone who’d voluntarily go to sea must be addled.’
The woman whooped, laughing. ‘Spoken like a true son of the plains, Kyle.’
He eyed her, wondering whether that was a probe. ‘She said they call her cursed – is that true?’
‘Yes, it’s true. But here’s the kicker … is it true because she’s had seven husbands, or because she’s had seven husbands?’
Kyle could only stare, his brow tight. What in the name of the Hooded Harrower? He shook his head. ‘How is … my companion, Orjin?’
‘Oho! Orjin, is it? Sleeping like a whale below. Four of the crew couldn’t move him.’
‘Any wounds?’
‘Nothing serious. And he’s seen his share of Denul rituals.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that the man’s far older than he looks, and heals far faster than most.’
‘I suppose that’s where his money went,’ Kyle suggested, looking away.
‘I suppose so.’
Three days later, just after dawn, a crewman woke Kyle where he lay in a hammock below. Groggy, rubbing his face, he climbed the short steep stair to the deck. Above, a low cloudbank reflected the gold and pink of sunrise. The waters of the Storm Sea were high, but not choppy. It occurred to him that every region seemed to have its body of rough water or gales, its ‘storm sea’. Forward stood Captain June, the mate, Masul, Elia, and Greymane. He joined them; Greymane gave him a tight, concerned glance.
Captain June pointed to the south-east, just off the bow. ‘Friends of yours?’
Kyle squinted into the light: three dark shapes emerging from the glare of the sunrise. Large vessels, many sails. ‘Who are they?’
‘Malazan men-of-war,’ said June. ‘They seem to be coming on an intercept and we can’t outrun them. We’re no sleek raider.’
‘Wouldn’t suggest you try, Captain.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ affirmed Greymane.
June’s expressive brows rose. She drew heavily on her pipe. ‘Ain’t going to be any hostilities, are there? ’Cause my people won’t participate in anything like that.’
Greymane pushed a hand through his tangled silvery grey hair. ‘No, Captain. No hostilities.’
‘Hunh! All right then.’ She turned to the stern. ‘Steady on!’
‘Steady on, aye!’
Kyle moved until he stood next to Greymane. His eyes on the distant ships, he asked, ‘What’s it going to be?’
The man let go a long growled breath. ‘Don’t want these fellows to suffer. Can’t swim. So, we’ll let them come abreast then board the first and take them one by one.’
‘Not two at a time?’
He glanced sideways at Kyle. A straight smile pulled at his mouth. ‘Let’s not get carried away.’
It was a fleet of Malazan men-of-war, tall and moderately broad for greater stability, commissioned for war at sea. From the soldiers lining the high railings, the stern- and forecastles, Kyle estimated that each of the twenty vessels carried some four hundred marines. Much larger troop transports could be seen in the east, convoyed, lumbering south in long straight columns. Even from this distance something struck him as odd about the vessels: they appeared just too damn huge, and of an odd hue, almost that of the waters they rode.
To Kyle it looked like an invasion assembled to take a continent. ‘Have you ever seen the like?’ he murmured to Greymane, awed.
After a time the man answered, a strange, almost resigned note in his voice. ‘Yes, Kyle. I have.’
No fool, Captain June ordered sails furled. A launch appeared, lowered from the nearest warship. Greymane and Kyle watched while it crossed the distance between the vessels, oared by some eighteen marines.
June ordered a rope ladder thrown over the side. Three officers crowded the launch, including one obvious Moranth Blue. The first pulled himself aboard easily to stand comfortably on deck, hands clasped at his back. An obvious veteran, short and stocky with a bald sun-darkened pate, and a high officer by the hatching on the silver torc on his arm. His mouth was thin and tight and had the look of rarely being opened. ‘Permission to come aboard,’ he asked of no one in particular.
June let out a gust of smoke. ‘Could hardly refuse, now, could I?’
The man’s mouth did not move.
The second officer was a Dal Honese woman in dark silks, a small silver claw sigil at her breast. The sight chilled Kyle even though the woman’s pasty-greyish face and hand clutching the gunwale took somewhat from the power of her presence. The Moranth Blue climbed aboard easily despite the weight of the chitinous plated armour, to stand silent and self-contained. He – or she – nodded a greeting to Captain June.
Greymane broke the protracted silence. ‘I gather I am under arrest.’
The Malazan officer’s hairless brows rose. ‘Under arrest? Not at all, Commander.’
Commander? Kyle wondered.
Greymane shared Kyle’s confusion. He gaze flicked from face to face. ‘Not under arrest?’
‘No.’ The man saluted. ‘Fist Khemet Shul at your service, sir. Leading the convoy.’ He indicated the Claw. ‘Reshal. And this is Halat, liaison for the Moranth Blue Bhuvar – that is Admiral – Swirl.’
The Moranth Blue bowed to Greymane. ‘An honour.’
Greymane’s glacial eyes had narrowed to slits. ‘Why did you call me Commander?’
In answer, Reshal drew a scroll from her shirt and held it out, her left hand supporting her right, and bowed. ‘A missive from Emperor Mallick Rel the Glorious to be delivered personally to your hand.’
Greymane regarded the proffered scroll as one might a bared dagger. Yet, reluctantly, he took it. Kyle waited while the man read. Reshal swallowed hard and straightened, jaws clenched tight and hands pressed to her sides. Kyle thought he’d seen her eyeing him earlier and grinned at her condition. Her answering smile seemed to promise a knife-thrust – later.
Greymane lowered the scroll. He glanced at Kyle, attempting to reassure him with his gaze, which Kyle thought alarmed. ‘Insane, Captain. Utterly insane. Twice it’s been tried and twice the Riders and the Mare galleys destroyed the fleets. This one will manage no better.’
Shul bowed, accepting the point. ‘As you say, Commander. However, this time the Emperor has offered a contract to the Moranth. And they have delivered.’ He looked to Halat. ‘Liaison?’
The Moranth Blue bowed. Aqua hues churned over the polished plates of his armour as he moved. ‘We will break the Mare blockade, Greymane,’ he said, his voice hollow within his masking helm. ‘That is our promise.’
‘You are certain?’
‘Or we will die trying. Such is our word.’
‘Then – I accept the commission.’
Shul saluted crisply. ‘Very good, Fist. Your invasion fleet is assembling off the coast of Kartool.’
‘Are you the insane one?’ Kyle demanded the moment they had time alone in the empty crew quarters. ‘How could you accept – after the
way they treated you?’
Squeezed on to a bench, the big man raised an accepting hand. ‘Yes, Kyle. I understand.’ He examined an empty carved wood cup, almost invisible in his wide shovel-like hand. ‘Believe me, I used to feel the same way.’ He took a great breath, turned the cup in small circles on the table before him. ‘But I’m older now. That attack from the Chosen, and the Malazans finding me now … I’ll never be able to hide. And perhaps I shouldn’t have run in the first place. I had people in Korel. People who depended on me. One fellow, Ruthan he was called, he was ready to fight, but I hope he followed my warning. When I was forced to leave … well, it’s always gnawed at me. Like a betrayal. I’ve sometimes found myself wondering – are they still alive?’
Kyle filled Greymane’s cup and one for himself from a jug of watered wine, and, ducking under hammocks, sat. He studied his friend across the table. The man’s long dirty hair, now the hue of iron in this dim light, hung almost to the table. He was unshaven, his wide jowls grey with bristles. Old. The man looks old, and tired. Was this some sort of misguided effort to fix past failures? But from what he understood the failures were not of his making … Still, it was obvious he felt responsibility.
Responsibilities. Duties. Why was it that those who took on such burdens did so of their own accord? Kyle supposed that, in the end, those were the only kind that truly mattered. Like his sitting here now across from his friend. No one had asked. He need not accompany the man. His hand slid to the sword at his side. Burdens willingly taken on, he decided, come to define the bearer.
‘So you are in charge then?’ Kyle finally said into the relative silence of the creaking hull planks and the waves surging past.
‘Of all land operations, yes. Once we arrive – Hood! Should we arrive.’
‘But not the fleet?’
‘No.’
‘Who is?’
Greymane offered a half-smile, his pale sapphire eyes holding a tempered humour. ‘You will have a chance to meet a living legend, Kyle. The name will mean nothing to you seeing as you’re a damned foreigner, but the naval assault will be commanded by Admiral Nok.’
But Greymane was wrong. Kyle had heard of him.
CHAPTER III
Master of violence!
And violence mastered.
Companion to darkness.
Hail the Warlord!
Hammer fell
and fist heavy.
What ancient seams
Does he mine when
Night thoughts turn
To fault, fracture,
And that which must be done?
Lament for the Warlord
Fisher Kel Tath
COURTIERS IN BRIGHT FINERY ONCE CROWDED THE RECEPTION hall of Fortress Paliss, capital of the once sovereign Kingdom of Rool. Tapestries lined its stone walls. Long tables offered up delicacies and wines from distant exotic lands in this, the most powerful state on Fist – rival to Korelri.
Once.
Now, the broad hall stood empty, dark and cold. A single occupant – other than his guards – sat at one bare table, his back to a blazing conflagration roaring within a stone fireplace four paces across.
Ussü entered and crossed the wide unlit hall. Shadows danced over him, flickering from the distant fire. His master, Yeull ’ul Taith, commander of what remained of the Malazan Sixth Army, Overlord of Fist, sat as no more than a silhouette of night, awaiting him.
With Ussü walked Borun, Black Moranth, leader of a contingent of that race shipwrecked on Fist some fifteen years ago and now Yeull’s second. Commander of what the locals cursed as Yeull’s ‘Black Hands’.
Ussü noted how Borun’s armoured boots grated on the stone while his footfalls came in comparative silence. He looked down to his leather sandals almost hidden beneath layered robes. Quiet. Hidden. And so it has always been. Who was to know that he, Ussü, once a mage of little note within the Empire, now pursued power by other, darker, means?
They halted before their commander. Yes, commander, now. Yeull ’ul Taith. Overlord. High Fist, after a fashion. First went Greymane – ousted on account of his outrageous leanings. Then that Imperialappointed governor – what had his name been? Found dead. Then Fist Udara – but her suicide had appeared genuine. And now Yeull – clinging on like a man gripping a plank in a storm. Terrified of betrayal. Yet hanging on just the same, even more terrified of letting go.
Yeull straightened, a thick bearhide wrap falling from his shoulders. His long black hair hung wet with sweat over a pale scarred face. Dark eyes darted between Ussü and Borun. ‘Yes? What is it?’
‘News, m’lord. Of a kind.’
Yeull leaned in his tall chair, draped an arm over its back. ‘Look at you two.’ He gestured to Ussü: ‘White,’ then to Borun, ‘and black.’
Ussü favoured pale hues such as ivory and cream. And his hair was long and thoroughly grey. While Borun was, of course, black.
‘Is one to suggest caution, the other haste?’
‘M’lord …’
‘Is one to prove trustworthy, the other … well … not so trustworthy? ’
‘M’lord!’
The dark eyes sharpened. ‘Overlord.’
Ussü bowed. ‘Yes, Overlord.’
‘What is it?’ He poured himself a glass of wine from an earthenware decanter. ‘Is it cold in here? I feel cold.’
As he stood before the roaring bonfire sweat now prickled Ussü’s underarms, chest and face. ‘No, m—Overlord. I am not cold.’
‘No? You’re not?’ He tossed back the glass in one swallow. ‘I am. To the bones.’
‘He is calling for you.’
Yeull looked up from studying the empty glass. ‘What? Someone calling me? Who?’
‘The prisoner,’ Borun said, his voice a coarse growl.
Yeull set down the glass carefully, straightened in his seat. ‘Ah. Him. What does he want?’
‘He must have news for us, High Fist. Something to offer, in any case.’
‘It is cold – I swear it is cold.’ Yeull turned aside. ‘More wood for the fire.’
Ussü turned a quick look to Borun but could see nothing within the vision slit of his lowered visor. These Moranth and their armour! The man must be sweltering.
‘So?’ Yeull demanded. ‘Why are you here speaking to me then? Speak to him.’
‘He will only talk to you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, High Fist.’
‘Out of the question.’ The High Fist drew the bearhide cloak tighter about his shoulders.
Ussü suppressed his irritation. ‘We have been through this before, High Fist. It must be you. None other.’
The man was looking aside, his gaze distant, almost empty. ‘It will be cold down there. So far below.’
‘We will bring torches.’
‘What’s that? Torches? Yes. Fire. We must bring fire.’
They walked the dark empty halls of Fortress Paliss. Guards – all Malazan regulars – saluted and unlocked doors to the deeper passageways. Ussü noted the many grey beards among them. They were none of them getting any younger, including himself. Who would carry on? They had trained and recruited thousands of soldiers from among the Rool and Skolati citizens, organized an army of over seventy thousand, but hardly any of the locals held a rank above captain.
Original Malazan officers constituted the ruling body. It was, in effect, the permanent rule of an occupying military elite. Yet their generation was passing away. Who would take up the sceptre – or the mace, in this instance – of rulership? Most had children, grown to men and women now, but these formed the new pampered aristocracy, not the least interested in service, or the world beyond their own sprawling estates. No, it seemed to Ussü more surely with every passing year that the local Fistian and Korelri policy was simply to ignore these invaders until they faded away. As surely they would, soldier by soldier, until nothing was left but for mouldering armour and dusty pennants from forgotten distant lands high on a wall.
The
stalemate of initial invasion had ossified into formalized relations. It seemed that as far as the Korelri were concerned the Malazans simply ran the island of Fist now, as had the last Roolian dynasty before them. A mere change in administration. Frustration was not the word. Failure, perhaps, came closer to describing the acid bite in Ussü’s stomach and soul whenever his thoughts turned to it. He had failed his superiors, each commander in turn, failed in attaining his one assigned task: achieving Malazan domination in this theatre. Decades ago, before the invasion fleet left Unta, Kellanved himself had set the task upon him.
He remembered his surprise and terror that day, so long ago now, when the old ogre had taken his arm and walked him out along Unta’s harbour mole. Dancer had followed; how the man’s gaze had tracked their every move! ‘Ussü,’ Kellanved had said, ‘I will tell you this: in the end conquering is not about what territory or resources you control … it is about recasting the deck entirely.’
And he had mouthed something insipid about certainly meaning to and the Emperor had pulled his arm free to jab his walking stick impatiently to the south. ‘Everywhere, for every region – for every person – hands are dealt from the Dragons deck. To create true fundamental change you must force a complete reshuffling and recasting of all hands. Turn your thoughts to that.’ And the man had smiled slyly then, leaning on the silver hound’s head walking stick, staring out over the water and Ussü remembered thinking: As you have, wherever you have gone.
They reached the lowest levels of construction. A locked iron door barred entrance to deeper tunnels carved from the native rock. Here Ussü used a key from his own belt to unlock the portal; no guards remained. Beyond, Borun and Yeull lit torches from lanterns and continued; Ussü locked the door behind them.
He believed these rough winding ways dated back to before the establishment of Paliss itself as a state capital, or even as a settlement. It seemed to him the dust their footfalls kicked up carried with it a tang of smoke and sulphur. Perhaps a remnant of the immense crater lake that dominated the big island.
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) Page 130
