The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach: Three Short Novels of the Malazan Empire
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‘Leader of the Nehemothanai?’ snorted Tuglord Vise. ‘I take no orders from you, you brainless oaf!’
The demon pointed at the throne. ‘We’ve all been played. Bauchelain left an heir, and woe to the fool who dares challenge him!’
Tiny squinted at the throne. ‘Tiny sees nobody!’
‘Draw closer, then,’ the demon said, smirking.
Tiny crept gingerly forward, eyes darting, ears twitching at the slightest sound to the left and right, real or imagined. When he glanced back over a shoulder, Flea smiled and waved.
Six paces from the throne he halted, stiffened, and then slowly straightened. ‘I see a mouse on the cushion!’ He looked back at the demon. ‘Ha! Hah! Hah hah ha! Ha!’
‘A demonic mouse,’ said the giant demon. ‘Oh yes, beware Bauchelain’s sense of humour. The punchline of every one of his jokes is announced in a welter of blood, guts and messy death!’ It gestured dismissively. ‘You’ve been warned, the least I can do. Oh, and by the way, an army is about to crush this city. I wouldn’t tarry overlong.’
The demon then fled the throne room.
Tiny continued eyeing the mouse, which in turn had lifted its cute little head, twitching with both its cute little nose and its cute little whiskers.
‘Tiny can take it,’ said Tiny in a quavering voice.
‘Oh,’ said Flea, ‘it’s so cute and little!’
‘Heed that demon’s words,’ advised Steck Marynd. ‘Milady,’ he said, ‘best step back.’ He lifted his crossbow. ‘This could get messy. But that said, is it not our duty to rid the world of the Nehemoth’s minions, no matter where we find them?’
‘Then we should all rush it as one,’ suggested Tulgord Vise, hefting his sword.
‘Once I loose my quarrel, aye,’ nodded Steck Marynd. ‘You listening, Tiny?’
‘Tiny hears you,’ said Tiny. ‘Its eyes are glowing most fiercely. Do mouse eyes normally glow? Tiny’s not sure. Tiny’s not sure of anything anymore!’
Flea burst into tears.
Behind them all the double doors suddenly slammed shut, the sound so startling that Steck’s finger instinctively flexed, releasing the quarrel.
Straight for the mouse.
Mayhem erupted.
A block away and traversing corpse-strewn streets, Brash Phluster flinched and turned at the sound of the palace’s sudden, inexplicable collapse.
He paid the billowing dust and now flames only momentary heed, his mind frantically occupied as it was on the Epic Lay of Brash Phluster, a ten volume, ten million word poem unwaveringly adhering to the classic iambic hexameter in the style of the Lost Droners of Ipscalon.
Visions of glory danced through his forebrain.
Twenty-four paces later, the Potion of Ineluctable Genius wore off. He looked round, shrieked and then ran for the nearest sewer hole.
PART TWO
The Next Day Outside Farrog
BENEATH THE BRIGHT light of dawn, Grand General Pin Dollop cursed and then rode out in front of his legions. He wheeled his mount. ‘This is our moment!’ he cried in his thin, girly voice. ‘Those numbers you see behind me are deceiving! Mere conscripts! A peasant army and never mind all that twinkly armour and those big shields! They’ll shatter to our hammer blow! Run shrieking for the hills!’
‘Shatter!’ bellowed his army.
‘Yes!’ Pin Dollop screamed back.
‘Run shrieking for the hills!’
‘Exactly! Now, follow me, as we charge into legend!’ And he dragged his horse round, set heels to its flanks, and led the wild charge into the mass of ordered legions directly ahead.
This was glory! This was jaw-dropping courage, breathtaking audacity, a charge not just into legend but into the hoary myths that crawled and stumbled their way down through all of history!
His horse tripped over a badger den, throwing the Grand General from the saddle. He landed in a perfect shoulder roll and lithely regained his feet even as he dragged free his shortsword.
Directly ahead, thirty thousand archers nocked arrows.
Laughing fearlessly, Pin Dollop glanced back—
To see his legions shattered, the soldiers flinging down their weapons and running shrieking for the hills.
He spun back round as thirty thousand arrows arced into the sky, all converging on Pin Dollop.
He ducked.
Well disguised beneath a heavy damp cloak, Ophal D’Neeth Flatroq sat perched upon the high saddle, stroking his pet slow-worm, which he kept covered up lest the sight of it frighten one of countless refugees lining the narrow road.
After some time, he sighed and twisted in the saddle. ‘Willl you two thtop gwarrrwing at each other! It wuth awwrll a mithunderthtanding, yeth?’
‘He tried to strangle me!’ snapped Beetle Praata.
‘And he made me groom and water and feed a dead horse!’ retorted Puny Sploor.
‘Oh, bother! Methenger Beetle, find uth a dank cave for the night, willll you? And you, Puny Thploor, clearrr uth a path thwough thethe wefugeeth!’
‘Oh really? And how exactly do I do that?’
‘I don’t know why I keep you on, to be honetht.’
‘You keep me on because I’m the only man in the world who doesn’t throw up at the sight of you eating, oh Failed Ambassador of the Burning City of Farrog!’
Well, Ophal conceded, the man had a point there. He gestured with one gloved hand. ‘Wellll, do the betht you can, then. And you, Methenger, why are you thtill here? A cave, I thaid!’
‘Right,’ Beetle growled, taking up his reins. ‘Another fucking cave. Right. Got it.’ He rode off.
Ophal sighed again. At least Eeemlee his pet slow-worm never complained. He resumed stroking it. Then glanced down to find that it was dead. ‘Puny Thploor, betht look away, ath I am hungwy.’
A full day’s travel from the city of Farrog and Emancipor could still see, when looking back, the pillar of black smoke. He wiped at his itchy, stinging eyes, and glanced at his master who sat beside him on the bench. ‘I have to admit, sir, that I’m glad you didn’t have to kill and maim too many of them citizens before the rest broke and ran.’
‘Mister Reese, your mercy remains a quaint if somewhat tiresome affectation. For myself, I confess to some disappointment. The demons bound in my sword are very frustrated indeed. We shall have to find us another city, or situation, in which to exercise my obligations to them.’
‘Really? When?’
‘Oh, not too soon, I assure you.’ He lifted a hand and gestured ahead. ‘Do you see Korbal there? He rides well the updraghts, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I think he prefers being a crow to being a man.’
‘On occasion, Mister Reese, I share his bias.’
‘Ain’t noticed that much of late, Master.’
‘Well, it is easier keeping you company this way, Mister Reese, than being a crow balanced upon your rather thin shoulder.’
‘All on account of me, huh? Well, I’m, er, flattered.’
‘As you should be. That said, you must understand, frustration stalks us, alas. Oh, the endless wealth we steal soothes the soul, to be sure. But the true exercise of power, Mister Reese, ah, so fleeting!’
‘Forgiving me being forward and all, Master, but what you two need is a keep somewhere. Impregnable, unassailable, forbidding, suitably haunted.’
‘Hmm, a curious notion, Mister Reese. Mind you, do recall Blearmouth. Oh yes, it all started off well, and our wintering there was most enjoyable, until the infernal Nehemothanai caught wind of us. I admit that I grow weary of staying one step ahead of them, in particular that army and the Mysterious Lady commanding them.’
‘A strong enough keep, sir,’ ventured Emancipor, ‘and you’d not have to worry.’
‘You appear to share our weariness in this endless journey.’
‘Well, Master, it’s all the same to me, to be honest.’
‘Perhaps if Korbal Broach assembled an army of undead …’
‘That’d be fine,
sir, if they weren’t so, uh, useless.’
‘Granted, although I warn you not to venture such opinions within hearing of my erstwhile comrade.’
‘Not me, sir. Never. Not a chance.’
‘Now, Mister Reese, I well see your exhaustion. Do retire to the confines of the carriage and get yourself some sleep. I can manage the traces for a time, I assure you.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Emancipor said, handing the traces over to his master. He stretched out the kinks in his back. ‘I’ll just have me a pipe first, then, by way of relaxing and whatnot.’
‘Best be quick,’ Bauchelain advised. ‘I am of a mind to take this carriage into a warren, to traverse the wild raging flames of some nether realm, if only to confuse our trail.’
Emancipor stuffed the pipe back into its pouch and made for the carriage door. ‘I can smoke later,’ he said hastily.
‘As you will, Mister Reese. Now then, you may hear the horses screaming. Pay that no mind. They’re used to it.’
Emancipor paused at the door. ‘Aye, sir, and so am I.’
About the Author
Steven Erikson is an archaeologist and anthropologist – and the author of one of the defining works of Epic Fantasy: ‘The Malazan Book of the Fallen’, which has been hailed ‘a masterwork of the imagination’. The first novel in this astonishing ten-book series, Gardens of the Moon, was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. He has also written a number of novellas set in the same fantasy world and Willful Child, an affectionate parody of a long-running science fiction television series. Forge of Darkness begins the Kharkanas Trilogy – a series which takes readers back to the origins of the Malazan world. Fall of Light continues this epic tale. Steven Erikson lives in Victoria, Canada.
Also by Steven Erikson
The Malazan Book of the Fallen
GARDENS OF THE MOON
DEADHOUSE GATES
MEMORIES OF ICE
HOUSE OF CHAINS
MIDNIGHT TIDES
THE BONEHUNTERS
REAPER’S GALE
TOLL THE HOUNDS
DUST OF DREAMS
THE CRIPPLED GOD
THE FIRST COLLECTED TALES OF
BAUCHELAIN AND KORBAL BROACH
The Kharkanas Trilogy
FORGE OF DARKNESS
FALL OF LIGHT
THIS RIVER AWAKENS
THE DEVIL DELIVERED AND OTHER TALES
WILLFUL CHILD
For more information on Steven Erikson and his books, see his website at www.steven-erikson.org
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This edition first published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press
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Copyright © Steven Erikson
Crack’d Pot Trail copyright © 2009
The Wurms of Blearmouth copyright © 2012
The Fiends of Nightmaria copyright © 2016
Cover Illustrations by Steve Stone
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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446486290
ISBN 9780593063965
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