Orb Sceptre Throne (94 page)

Spindle flinched as salvos of tossed sharpers lacerated the charging Seguleh; but those that made it through wrought havoc among the squares.

Shit! This is not good. Not good at all. Things are gettin’ too crowded by far
.

He returned to his digging.

‘What
are
you doing?’ a girl’s voice called down to them.

The hair on Spindle’s neck and all across his shirt stirred and straightened at that voice.
Oh, Togg take it!
He rose, taking hold of one of the bottles as he did so and holding it behind his back. Fisher moved to help conceal the motion. He found himself staring at a damned dancing girl; one who’d been in a fight, it seemed, as her wispy clothes were slashed down the front and speckled with blood. She arched a brow at him and her come-to-me lips lifted into an amused smirk.

Her Warren swirled around her, its aura a storm that nearly blinded Spindle’s mage-sight.
Inhuman. No youth could possibly be this strong. Like a damned High Mage, this one is
.

‘Ah – maintenance,’ he offered.

Her carmine-tinged eyes shifted, searching the pit and beyond. ‘There’s a witch here. I sense her. Sworn to Ardata, perhaps?’

Uh-oh, Ma’s gettin’ her hair up
.

‘Leave while you can, child,’ Fisher said suddenly.

Her brow wrinkled, bemused. ‘What?’

‘Twelve their fell number,’ he sang as if reciting, ‘dragged and chained from Abyss’s deepest pits.’

Her gaze slitted on him. ‘Who
are
you?’

Spindle pulled the cork from the bottle and held it out. ‘Don’t make me use this!’

She stared, frowning. A girlish giggle escaped her. ‘Is the wine that bad here?’

As an answer he shook a splash on to the roots and grass at her feet. Smoke fumed and a hissing seared the air. The girl flinched an involuntary step away. ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

He threatened her with the bottle. ‘I don’t want to – but I will! I mean it.’

She glared an inhuman fury. Her eyes flared as if aflame and she hissed a snarling gurgle of frustrated rage.

Spindle jerked the bottle, splashing more of the corroding chemical.

At that she spun, blurring, to disappear into her daemonic Warren.

Fisher, at his side, let out a long low breath. Spindle nodded his sincere agreement. They returned to their digging.

*

High Priestess of Shadow Sordiko Qualm sat cross-legged on her bed, elbows on knees and chin in her hands, intently studying the silk hangings that enclosed the broad four-poster as a wind passed through the chamber, causing the candles on the far walls to cast flickering shadows across the rippling cloth. Within these shifting shadows images and vistas seemed to form spontaneously, only to dissolve away almost instantly as she watched.

From the open window came hammering and flashes as of a summer thunderstorm.

Screams pulled her attention from the shifting hangings and she blinked, shaking her head. The play of shadows dispersed like shredding gauze. She drew a long curved knife from under a pillow, its blade so darkly blued as to be almost invisible, and padded from her chamber, barefoot, her silk shift so thin as to be nearly, well, invisible too.

The inner temple was crowded with men. The priestesses had retreated to the walls, cowering. Sordiko spotted Seguleh and Malazans among the crowd.

‘What is the meaning of this invasion?’ she cried.

The twenty or so men all looked at her. The expressions on their faces changed from suspicion and confusion to something much more familiar in Sordiko’s experience. She became conscious of her rather inadequate dress. ‘Have you a spokesman?’

‘Aye, I suppose.’ A Malazan pushed forward, short, red moustache, looking like he’d just been dragged through an entire campaign; in fact, they all looked as though they’d just finished a siege that they’d lost. ‘This is Darujhistan?’

‘Yes. Temple to Shadow.’ She raised her chin and threw back her shoulders, demanding: ‘What is your business here?’

The men stared. Several let out long sighs. ‘I’m joinin’ Shadow,’ one murmured to his neighbour.

The moustached soldier found his voice: ‘We, ah – we’re …’ He raised a hand for silence. ‘What’s that noise?’

Sordiko nodded to him. ‘War, Malazan. The Legate has called the Seguleh and now they and the Moranth make war upon each other as in ancient times. Only now the city is caught between.’

‘Legate?’ one shouted, stepping forward. Youngest of them, Darujhistani by his tattered clothes and the style of his weapon. In fact … She squinted. ‘You are of the Lim family?’

‘Yes. Corien.’

‘I’m sorry, Corien, but your cousin …’

The Seguleh started for the main exit. A priestess blocked it, shouting, ‘The High Priestess has not given you leave!’

The lead Seguleh, one of the Twenty by his mask, cocked his head towards Sordiko in a silent question. She waved the priestess aside.
Unreasonable bastards
. They marched out. All of the rest of the ragtag wretches followed.
Dammit!
‘You, Malazans! Your troops are west of the city! You three others – who are you? There’s something strange about you! Come back!’

The doors gaped empty until attending priestesses slammed and barred them. Sordiko set her fists to her hips.
How do you like that? First time so many men have ever walked out on me
…

The streets were jammed with citizenry all attempting to flee at once and therefore unable to flee anywhere because the way was choked. From the steps to the temple to Shadow, Antsy glimpsed a strange darkness that hung over the city, and above this, the circling quorls, and the munitions punishing the hilltop Majesty Hall. An immense opalescent dome shimmered over that hilltop. The Seguleh seemed to be making straight for the hill. The crowds screamed and flinched aside, leaving them clear passage. Antsy urged Corien onward. ‘C’mon!’

‘We’re headin’ west,’ Sergeant Girth shouted. ‘Ain’t our fight. Gonna get yourself kilt!’

Antsy waved the man off.
Miserable bastard. Save his skin and that’s the thanks I get. Well, his duty is to get his troops back safe. Fair enough, then
.

The Heels marched with him and Corien. They had huge grins pasted to their faces and peered about like country hicks, nudging one another and pointing at buildings as if this was one big night out. Trailing along in the wake of the Seguleh they all made good time.
And just what do you plan to do, Antsy? ’Cept maybe get your fool head blown off. Still, these boys and girls had been on a mission. And now they’re charging for their fellows. Something’s definitely up
.

*

A richly appointed carriage careered its way down one of the switchback roads of the Third Tier escarpment. Four panicked horses drew it. The coachman whipped them between terrified glances over his shoulder to Majesty Hill, where bursts of light made him flinch and an accompanying rumbling shook the carriage beneath him.

They roared down the road, sending pedestrians fleeing for the walls. ‘Out of the way!’ the coachman bellowed. ‘Clear way for Lord Pal’ull! Clear way!’

And all the citizenry did dart aside. The carriage swung round a sharp corner, iron rims striking sparks from the flint cobbles, horses’ hooves clattering. A further stretch of jammed pedestrians jumped for the walls – all but for one very tall fellow coming up against the flow.

‘
Clear!
’ the coachman bellowed. Then his eyes widened and he dropped the whip to yank the reins aside. The horses plunged to the right and passed the tall armoured figure, but the carriage swung sideways and slammed into him in an eruption of splintering wood and bending, wrenching iron. The coachman was thrown from his seat over the road wall while the horses continued down the way, dragging the shattered fore-section of the carriage behind them in a shower of trailing sparks and falling splinters.

The armoured figure, bright reflections flashing from it in emerald and sapphire, hadn’t shifted a fraction. It lifted one heavy foot to crunch down on the broken wreckage, snapping and flattening the siding. Lord and Lady Pal’ull lay unconscious amid the remains. It walked on without pause, crushing all the debris in its way.

After the great lumbering armoured figure had passed, the citizenry descended on the wreckage in a looting horde. Ten minutes later all that remained at the scene was shattered wood and an unconscious lord and lady in their linen underclothes.

*

Aragan adjusted his seat on his mount – his arse was getting numb. He was still waiting next to Fist K’ess. A short time ago several quorls had come flitting overhead, twin saddles empty. Some limped along on damaged wings, hardly able to stay aloft. A few came soaring down out of the night sky in a sort of controlled fall to land out of sight without any sound of their crash.

He and K’ess shared looks of dread. Fearsome though the Moranth might be, both had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. K’ess had offered marines for the assault but Aragan had vetoed the suggestion. They’d lost enough troops against the Seguleh; no need to lose more. They were the outsiders here. This was an ancient feud. One this Legate had reopened – perhaps to his short-lived regret. Or so Aragan hoped.

Regardless, he would watch and report. And far away, across Seeker’s Deep, Command at Unta would then adjust Imperial strategy accordingly …

A deep murmuring rose to his attention. It hummed in his ears like a shaking of the earth. Standing water in the fields rippled as if vibrating. Aragan turned in his saddle, along with many others, peering about for the source of the penetrating din.

Then the light changed. Something intervened in the night sky between the glowing bright green Scimitar and the ground. He squinted up to look. A cloud. A wide dark cloud sweeping in from the west.

The murmuring swelled to a deafening thrumming that drowned out all other sounds. Aragan hunched beneath the punishing noise, as did K’ess and others all around. Peering up, he caught the cloud of glimmering wings. Each quorl now carried only one rider, but from every saddle hung fat double panniers fore and aft.

Aragan turned a glare on Torn. ‘What is this?’ he shouted.

‘The alternative,’ calmly answered Torn.

‘Give the assault a chance!’

‘We are. We await the signal.’

‘Signal? What signal?’

‘Success or failure.’

Aragan thrust a hand to the city. ‘Gods, man! Give them time to offer terms, or call a truce!’

Torn shook a slow negative. ‘There will be no terms from the Tyrant. We know him of old.’

‘Torn, be careful here. You could be opening a blood-feud that will soak all these lands!’

‘So it was in the old days, Malazan,’ Torn answered, steel in his voice. ‘The lands of Pale were once ours. We had colonies in the lowlands. Where are they now, I ask you! Annihilated. Such are
his
terms.’

Aragan opened his mouth but no words would come. And above the quorls circled, waiting, a thrumming drone promising a cataclysm of destruction for the unsuspecting city beyond.
Mortal enemies, each determined to utterly crush the other. No quarter. No survival for the fallen. These stakes are far too high. And we Malazans, outsiders, no more than impotent witnesses? Yet what can we do? What are our options? Soliel look away! Is there nothing we can do?

Of thy bones they have made a seat;

They have taken the orbs of thine eyes

Yet it is they who are blind

Warning carved on tomb entrance,

Dwelling Plain

THE WOODEN STAIRCASE
left Torvald at the rear of the rambling buildings. Paths nearby led through a slim belt of woods and courts that encircled the top of Majesty Hill. He half walked, half dragged the wounded Galene through the park-like strip. It looked as though she’d twisted or broken her leg in the crash. The blasts and echoing reverberations shook him rarely now; through the trees he glimpsed quorls diving in to deposit their riders. He knew that somewhere Seguleh were waiting and he dreaded what would happen should he run into any now. But then, neither of them had weapons drawn so he imagined at worst they’d only be captured.

His fears played out when they rounded a curve and he saw two Seguleh standing where major paths crossed. He stopped abruptly, his shoulders falling. One calmly waved him forward. Galene fumbled for her longsword but he pushed her hand aside. ‘No point,’ he murmured.

‘I have one munition,’ she whispered, reaching to her opposite side.

‘No!’
They’d just kill us
. ‘It’s too late.’

‘I won’t allow myself—’

The Seguleh spun aside raising their weapons as heavy armoured feet came pounding up another path. A column of Black Moranth charged: the first two held their wide shields up and threw something from behind. Galene yanked Torvald down.

He fell; she yelped her pain as she bent her wounded leg.

Multiple blasts buffeted him and gravel came pattering down all around. When he raised his head he glimpsed the Moranth finishing off the stunned and lacerated Seguleh. Even then there was a ferocious exchange of blows and half the Moranth were wounded.