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

  Hoarse laughter drew everyone’s attention. The old master pilot, Havvin, all bones and pale skin, came edging past Gwynn. He pushed his apprentice aside, offered Shimmer a broad wink. ‘Rouse the lads, boy. Prepare to bring us round.’

  The apprentice rang the bell, clearly relieved that his master had taken over. In a flurry of stamping feet the rest of the crew came pouring up on to the deck. ‘Man the lines!’ Levin shouted.

  Havvin pushed the tiller arm over. ‘Have to lose headway, don’t you think?’ he directed his apprentice.

  The lad nodded frantic assent, shouted: ‘Reef the mains’l! Lower the fores’l!’

  Ghelath watched silently, one fist closed on his ragged beard. After a moment he caught the old pilot’s eye and pointed to the bow. Havvin nodded a brief acknowledgement.

  Blues came up to the stern deck to stand next to Shimmer. He too was peering off over the side, to the glow of the distant bonfire.

  ‘Eyes up front, don’t you think, Levin?’ Havvin murmured, adjusting the tiller arm slightly.

  The lad swallowed, nodding. ‘Aye. Four lookouts on the bows!’

  Shimmer crossed to Gwynn. ‘Black flames?’ she murmured.

  He shrugged. ‘Thought it would be impressive.’

  Ghelath shook his head. ‘I still don’t like it, Havvin. Lose all the canvas. Prepare the sweeps.’

  Havvin nodded. ‘Aye, aye.’ He gestured to Levin.

  The lad drew a great breath, shouted, ‘Lower the yardarm! Unship the sweeps!’

  The crew scrambled to obey. The heavy yardarm scraped down the mainmast. Long thin oars that had been stored along the hull, just above the decking, were set into holes beneath the top railing.

  ‘Man the sweeps,’ Blues called down to Bars, who gave his curt assent and gestured to the gathered Avowed. They brushed the sailors aside to take the oars.

  ‘Dead stop,’ Shimmer called.

  The Avowed levered the oars straight down then swept them back, grunting and heaving. The vessel slowed so suddenly that Shimmer had to take a step for balance against the loss of motion. The Master’s thick matted brows shot up in amazement and wonder. Havvin hooted his laughter.

  All became quiet but for the splash of the waves, and, distantly, the roar of an unseen surf.

  ‘Ahead slow,’ the Master called, then cocked an eye to Shimmer, who motioned for him to take over.

  Blues crossed to Havvin, who was pushing and heaving on the thick tiller arm. ‘Need any help, old timer?’

  ‘Nay. A gentle touch is all’s needed. Like caressing a woman.’

  Blues shot an amused glance to Shimmer, who suppressed a smile. ‘We’re in good hands then,’ Blues supplied.

  ‘Oh, I could tell stories,’ Havvin answered, and he cackled his mad laughter once again.

  ‘Point starboard!’ a lookout called.

  The lashing of the tiller arm creaked as Havvin edged it a touch over. The Master still held his beard in one fist, and now he reached out and clenched the stern deck railing in a grip so tight and white it looked to Shimmer as if not even the strongest impact could dislodge him.

  Yells of surprise and horror suddenly went up as something immense and night-black loomed out of the murk. One of the soldiers this was, a pillar of rock all webbed in spray, seaweed and barnacles where it met the waves. Its top stood too tall to see and its girth was a third of their vessel’s length.

  Levin turned to cast an appalled look to his master, who merely smiled his mad grin, then shot Shimmer another wink. Calls sounded from the lookouts and she spun: the bonfire had come once more into view.

  ‘Lower the launch!’ Master Ghelath shouted.

  ‘Get us closer,’ Shimmer called.

  ‘Close enough!’ he answered, fierce. ‘I’ll not risk everyone for this.’

  Shimmer had to acknowledge something of the soundness of that and so with her teeth clenched tight she sent a curt nod to Bars.

  Bars grasped a sailor by the nape of his neck to set him on to his oar, then ran to where sailors were readying the long slender launch. He called out names to accompany him as he went.

  Mael’s Greetings slowly edged closer to the pillars emerging in ever denser numbers from the waves. The sight reminded Shimmer of descriptions of the dolmens of Tien, except that those had been carved and built by humans. This formation was so immense, and appeared to be rooted so far below the ocean, it could only be the work of the gods, or of nature itself.

  Some of the pillars were quite blunt, hardly topping the surf, just above the larger breakers. It was on one of these short pillars that the bonfire blazed.

  As Mael’s Greetings drifted, a figure came into view standing before the licking flames of the fire. A tall thin human shape, motionless, waiting, and Shimmer felt a shiver of recognition run through her. He’d come. At the last possible place he’d found a way to meet them. K’azz. She was certain.

  Rowed by six Avowed, including Bars, the launch surged through the waves and onward into the dark.

  ‘Turn us away a touch, Master Havvin,’ Ghelath murmured.

  ‘You worry too much,’ the old man grumbled, but he obeyed. The bowsprit began to edge to the north. They waited. The vessel rocked strongly in the rough seas. The surf roared loudly now, all the more terrifying as it was unseen but for the greenish phosphor glow where the waves crashed and foamed against the base of the cliffs.

  ‘Put up some sail,’ Master Ghelath ordered. ‘We need headway or we’ll swamp.’

  ‘Very well,’ Havvin answered, and raised his chin to Levin. The lad cupped his hands to his mouth.

  ‘Raise the fores’l!’

  The triangular foresail edged up and billowed, catching the wind, and the bows pulled over even further. Master Ghelath leaned forward over the stern deck rail. ‘Row, damn you!’

  The Avowed, who had paused to watch for the launch’s return, started guiltily and heaved on the oars. Next to Shimmer, Blues chuckled. ‘Can’t let them forget that,’ he murmured.

  She squinted off over the stern. ‘We’re not making too much headway, are we?’

  ‘They’ll catch up,’ he assured her. ‘Or break their oars trying.’

  After a time a long low shape detached itself from the dark blue gloom of the waves. Sailors hailed the launch and threw lines. Shimmer went to the side. A rope ladder was heaved over. Sitting amid the Avowed, dressed in old ragged travelling leathers, was K’azz. Catching her gaze, he offered a rueful half-smile, as if mocking himself, and saluted her.

  She just shook her head.

  When all were aboard, and the launch stored away atop the deck, Shimmer faced her commander. He looked travel-worn but hale – as hale as the man ever appeared now. His thin greying hair blew about his skull, the shape of which showed through. ‘What were you thinking?’ she accused him.

  ‘You’re going,’ he said, and he peered about at the gathered Avowed.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘No matter what. We must.’

  ‘No matter what,’ he echoed, slowly nodding. ‘Yes. Well. I wish you hadn’t. But I should have known you’d call my bluff, Shimmer.’ And he inclined his head, acknowledging his defeat, and turned to take Bars’ hand before moving on to greet all.

  Blues edged close to Shimmer and the two watched their commander speaking with each Avowed. ‘He really didn’t want us to go,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That makes me wonder, then,’ he said, ‘just what it is that awaits us.’

  Shimmer had been thinking the same thing. What could be so terrifying, or dangerous? Then the name of the rocks where K’azz had been awaiting them came to her: the Cape of the Stone Army. Also known as the Cursed Soldiers.

  She closed her eyes against the night and sent a prayer to Burn: dear ancient one, please let this not be an omen you send us. If these stone soldiers be cursed, then let that be the end of your anger. Send no doom upon us. In answer to your forbearance, I offer my dream. The wish I have held within my heart all these years.
It I would sacrifice to you. A future for a future. This is my pledge.

  So do I vow.

  * * *

  Kyle threw himself into the exhausting duties of day-to-day sailing. There was work enough aboard the Lady’s Luck for everyone, though the Stormguard held themselves apart, viewing the labour as beneath them. He did not suffer from such delusions of self-importance. He avoided the ten ex-Chosen, which suited them as they had only contempt for all outlanders. Indeed, they kept themselves apart from everyone. They stood wrapped in their thick blue woollen robes, spears never far from their fists. The regular working crew of the Mare vessel were torn between admiration for them as Stormguard, and a growing resentment at their arrogant presumption of superiority.

  For his part, Kyle suffered no such quandary. His answer to their scowls and slit-eyed hard stares was a quiet smile of amusement, as if they’d become a joke – something they no doubt suspected and thus dreaded to be the truth.

  His companion for much of this time was Reuth, Tulan’s nephew. In terms of seamanship, the lad was far behind even him. The Mare sailors were dismissive of the lad, seeing no worth in anyone so woefully ignorant. Kyle, however, remembered his own abrupt introduction to the sea: he’d grown up on the steppes, far inland, and had never even seen a ship until his fourteenth summer.

  The lad tagged along with him during watches and while he crewed. He kept up a peppering of questions regarding the outside world. A week into the crossing, perhaps halfway, Kyle drew the task of inspecting the lines, their splices and ends, searching for breaks and any dangerous fraying. He sat near the bow in the half-shade of the high prow while he sorted through the coils and bundles. Reuth sat with him. This day the lad was uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn.

  Kyle glanced up from studying a line of woven linen. ‘There is something troubling you?’ The lad would not meet his gaze; instead, he stared off down the long gangway that ran the length of the Lady’s Luck. ‘One of the crew kicked you aside? Cussed you up and down?’

  Reuth gave a shrug of his thin shoulders. ‘No worse than usual. No, they’re not so bad. Remember, Tulan’s the ship’s master.’

  ‘Not one to coddle you too closely, though.’

  Reuth laughed without humour. ‘No. That’s for certain.’

  Kyle set the linen line aside and turned to another, which appeared to be woven of hair. He inspected it more closely and was surprised, and a touch unnerved, to see that it was not horse hair, as he had presumed, but human hair.

  ‘Pay no attention to what these ragged sailors say, Reuth. Continue studying your maps. You could become a navigator, or a pilot. That’s a rare skill. One these hands can’t even imagine.’ He didn’t add that he himself was barely literate – it was only after joining the Guard that he’d learned to read and write, just.

  ‘No. It’s not them.’

  Kyle pulled on the woven line – it was strong. Perhaps it was somehow special; that is, special beyond the sacrifice made by the women of Mare for the welfare of their husbands and sons. Perhaps it was employed in the ship’s rituals surrounding the invocations of Ruse. ‘Not them?’ he asked absently.

  ‘No. It’s you.’

  He raised his gaze to the lad to find him casting quick concerned glances his way. He lowered the line. ‘Oh? Me? How so?’

  The lad licked his lips then cleared his throat into a fist. ‘You are an outlander. You served with the Malazans, yet you are not of them. You have the look and bearing of what we would call a barbarian, an inhabitant of the Wastes – your sun- and wind-darkened hue, your black hair and moustache.’

  Kyle eased himself back, straightening slightly. ‘Yes? So?’

  Reuth hesitated, then pushed on: ‘You carry that sword with you at all times. You never leave it aside in a bunk or a chest. You keep it hidden from sight, wrapped and covered…’

  ‘Yes? So?’

  ‘Well…’ The lad peered warily about then lowered his voice. ‘There are those on board who say you might be Whiteblade.’

  Whiteblade. So there it was. No longer the Whiteblade, but just Whiteblade itself. A title, or epithet. How things change and transform in the retelling as each speaker slips in one or two embellishments to make tales their own – or to move them in the direction they think they ought to go.

  ‘You’re doing it again,’ the lad said.

  Kyle studied the lad. He appeared serious, worried even, hunched forward as he was, his eyes searching. ‘Doing what?’

  Reuth pointed to his neck. Kyle lowered his gaze and jerked, a touch ruefully. The lad was right – he’d gotten hold of the amber stone he kept round his neck and was rubbing it as he thought.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just an old worn piece of amber. The gift of a friend long ago.’

  ‘So – are you him? Whiteblade?’

  He chose to give an unconcerned shrug. ‘And what if I was?’

  Reuth leaned even closer. His long unwashed hair fell forward and he brushed it back with an impatient gesture that was a habit of his. ‘Then you must be careful. There are those here who would like to kill you, I think.’

  ‘Thank you, Reuth. I’ll have a care.’

  The lad nodded earnestly. Edging forward even closer, he pressed his hands together and touched his fingers to his nose. ‘Ah … so … is it true what I hear?’

  Kyle simply shook his head, smiling slightly. He picked up the sailor’s dirk he’d taken as his own, honed to a thin sickle-moon, and set to cutting a hemp line to trim it.

  Reuth sighed his disappointment and sat back. ‘Well, I had to try.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning, Reuth. Now I think that the less time you are seen with me the better for you.’

  At first the lad looked stricken – as if he’d been told to go away – but then the wider implications came to him and he nodded once more. ‘Ah! I see. Well, don’t you worry about me. Tulan’s the Master, remember.’

  Kyle waved him away with the short blade. ‘Go on with you now.’

  Winking, the lad clambered to his feet and ambled off.

  Kyle worked on, unweaving the coarse hemp fibres for a splice. This he could manage with his hands alone and his gaze shifted sidelong down the length of the galley to the raised stern deck where Tulan stood wrapped in layered robes that hung to his ankles. Nearby lingered a knot of the ex-Stormguard in their blue cloaks. With them was Storval, who made no secret of his antagonism. He’d often seen them together and it occurred to him that the lad was right: he would have to keep a closer eye on them. Any deep water crossing is a risky undertaking at the best of times. Tulan might be the Master, but ships are dangerous places. A man can fall overboard any time. Even by accident.

  CHAPTER III

  Orman crossed Pine Bridge in the night. The trunks of its bed creaked beneath his feet. Frost glimmered over the pale wood as it reflected the stars above. Below, the cold waters of Fool’s Creek rushed past beneath a clear skein of ice. It was still too early in the season to travel up-country – it would be months before the passes cleared – but he was no stranger to the snows. He’d hunted the valleys bordering the Holds through the winter. And with his father he’d wandered the high slopes for a full year.

  He knew the territory surrounding the old hunting camp. It was on level ground next to a seasonal run-off stream. High forested ridges overlooked it on two sides. There was no true camp – it was merely a convenient marshalling ground from which to set out on longer journeys. He also knew it would be an obvious place for any pursuit to come hunting for him. This did not overly worry him. He frankly doubted they’d come. After all, he had nothing to lose now that he’d been declared outlaw. And he carried Boarstooth.

  He set off at a jog-trot up the trail that climbed the first of the many ridges and mountain shoulders to come. The tall old growth of conifers blocked the stars, plunging him into deep shadow that was broken only by shafts of moonlight that came lancing down like spear-thrusts. Snow and ice were brittle and crusted ben
eath the battered leather moccasins that climbed to his knees. His breath plumed in the chill air.

  Yet he jogged tirelessly. And Boarstooth was a joy to hold: its balance was exquisite, the heft of its slim leaf-shaped stone blade a promise of power. The wood of its haft was polished dark with oils, and the point of its balance was worn even darker by the grip of its countless owners. For it was old – older than memory. Everyone knew it was a relic from the lost past. It was famous here in the north, and so his uncle Jal had claimed it for his own.

  If he continued through the night he should make the hunting camp near to dawn. If he continued. He thought of what he had left behind, and what he held, and he resolved to keep going. Nothing would stop him now. He was a free man in the wilderness, an outlaw among the lowlanders, and he would keep it that way.

  The leagues passed swiftly, and he began to sweat. Short of a turn in the trail that wandered on towards the camp, he paused. Who was waiting ahead? Was anyone? After all, he had only the word of Gerrun Shortshanks, a man looked upon with suspicion by many, whom some named forsworn for his mysterious coming and going, and damned as a probable thief.

  A man who knew what he, Orman, would no doubt take with him should he finally strike out into the wilds on his own.

  He turned off the trail and headed up the nearest ridge slope. He slowed, circled round the densest brush, stepped over fallen logs covered in humps of snow, climbed bare rock outcroppings. He found a curve of the ridge that overlooked the stream and here he crouched, his back to a moss-covered rock, Boarstooth across his lap, to wait. He blew upon his hands for a time to warm them.

  The sun’s rise was delayed, for it had to climb over the eastern mountain ridge. Mists filled the valley, twining through the trees like banners of ghost armies. To the north, the rising heights of the Salts humped and reared in snow-covered shoulders and peaks, all bathed in the golden-pink of dawn.

  Eventually, the mists burned off as the sun’s slanting rays pierced down to the valley floor. The clearing was empty. No gear lay about. No fire sent up slim wafts of white smoke.

  Orman’s stomach churned with acid sourness – what a fool he was! To have made any decision purely on the word of a shiftless rascal like Gerrun. Served him right. Looked as though he’d be headed south to offer his spear to Ronal the Bastard after all.