Stonewielder (103 page)

Kiska stared, unbelieving. Now she knew it was worse. It wasn’t
that she was castaway. It was that she wasn’t
alone
. She was with
him
. This useless, lazy, unmotivated lump.

She pushed herself up. ‘Well
I’m
not content to do nothing here.
I’m
going to find a way out.’

He made a noncommittal noise, his eyes closed.

Kiska stalked off.
Useless shit! Why should she have to do all the work?

Behind her, lying on the sand, a smile crept up Leoman’s lips.

*    *    *

The Shadow priest, Warran, stood alone on a modest slope watching the Liosan army, battered but victorious, come staggering back to their camp. He saw their leader, the ferocious Tiste Liosan woman, another daughter of the Ascendant Osserc, come limping back, supporting her brother L’oric, his nose, mouth and shirt-front dark with blood.

There. Well. That’s one thing settled, at least!

He held his hand out and a short walking stick appeared. He leaned upon it. His expression was one of satisfied contemplation.

‘Aren’t you done here yet?’ someone asked next to him.

He looked to the empty sky, then glanced to one side. It was a slim man in a loose dark shirt and trousers, with a rope draped round his neck which he held in both hands. ‘It just so happens that yes, I am.’

‘Thank the Ancients – you’ve wasted enough attention here.’

‘The creeping loss of Emurlahn is not to be ignored.’ He raised a finger. ‘No one steals from me. Not even a fish.’

The other furrowed his thin brows, opened his mouth to make a comment, reconsidered. ‘Well, this was never a threat.’

‘You are too sure of yourself.’

‘My confidence has gotten us where we are.’

‘As has my wariness and paranoia!’

Each glared at the other until Warran’s slit gaze slid aside and he murmured, ‘At least I think so …’

The other began fading away. ‘We’re too busy for this …’

Warran let out a tired breath, began thinning into transparency as if wafting away into shreds of shadow. ‘But I was enjoying the unravelling of the Whorl, the desolate landscape, the useless flailing of the Liosan …’

In moments both were gone.

*    *    *

Kyle sat on piled cargo amidships of his contracted Katakan trader. The Isle of East Watch passed as a dark jagged hump to the south. The sun warmed him; a welcome relief from the months of bitter, unnaturally intense winter. Shading his gaze, he looked back to Kevil Horn, the southern tip of Fist.

If he ever returned it would be too soon. He was sick of all these lands and their useless, internecine warfare. Waste, that’s what it was … all a sad waste. He’d return home – if he could find it. He wasn’t exactly sure where it lay. East of Genabackis, he believed. It had been years now and what did he have to show for all his trouble? A weapon that brought him more attention that he wanted, new scars, and painful memories.

Maybe he’d look up his old friends from the Guard: Stalker and his cousins, Badlands and Coots. See what they were up to. Anything but remain here, in these lands.

They’d taken his friend. Sleep well, Greymane! You were right not to tell me, or to bring me along. I’d have stayed with you … but then, I can think of worse deaths than falling at the side of a friend. Something, it seems to me, these Korelri understand
.

He reached to his neck to pull out a frayed leather strap and a small amber stone that he rubbed between thumb and forefinger. The words of that last Fistian priest returned to him:
Who protects you? It is of the earth!

Could it be true? Another old fallen friend still with him? The amber stone had come from Ereko, a giant like these Toblakai and Tarthinoe – in fact he’d claimed to be of the race that was their ancestors. And he’d claimed the very earth as his mother. Perhaps he was with him in more than memory …

He released the stone to gently feel at his ravaged scalp. He had no way of knowing, but he would like to think so. In any case he was free of them all now: free of these Korelri, the Guard, and especially he was free of these damned Malazans. He’d go home where there were only the plains, the animals, and the hunt. It would be good to return to that honest, uncomplicated life.

He’d had a bellyful of war and death and great powers grinding people underfoot as they groped for advantage – it sickened him. He had nothing but contempt for it and he felt almost weightless now that he was out of their clutches.

Yes, he’d look up his friends, Stalker and his cousins. They’d come
from the lands north of his birth plains. A land of mountains and forests. A land the elders of his clan named …
Assail
.

*    *    *

The crew of a fishing boat daring the rich waters south of Malaz Island was astonished when something heavy yanked on one man’s line. A crewman at the side swore he saw something bright flash beneath the boat, but when nothing more occurred they turned to the line. They were fearful, yet it was no longer the season of the Stormriders and so they warily pulled, to see a man’s body entwined in the gut. They heaved him into the boat and were even more astonished when he suddenly took a great shuddering breath and clutched at them.

‘Take me to Unta,’ he gasped.

Talia was sweeping the courtyard of the litter from the spring windstorms. Little Halgin pelted back and forth across the court defeating hordes with his stick sword under the careful eyes of their nanny. Talia was worried; they were expecting a number of foals and she wondered if they had room. And the harvest from last year – not what they’d hoped for. It would be a challenge to make do. She continued sweeping for a time, considering options: selling a few of the horses perhaps, though that was something she would never have imagined less than a year ago.

There were a lot of things I wouldn’t have imagined less than a year ago
.

Then the silence struck her. She looked up. Little Halgin was standing still, peering down the road where some old man was coming, limping carefully along with the help of a tall walking stick.

Inside, the twins started crying, screeching for their feed.

But she stared as well, watching. Something. There was something familiar in the shoulders, the head …

Halgin threw aside his stick to run up the road. Talia took one step to follow but stopped. Halgin was yelling something – a word she couldn’t hear for the roaring in her ears. Then the nanny was there holding her up and the twins were crying. Talia straightened, forced herself to steady her breathing. She urged the nanny inside to calm the twins.

Down the road the man had thrown aside his stick and Halgin had jumped up into his arms and he carried him now, walking more
strongly. Talia almost tried to rearrange her hair but wiped instead at her face. Then he was there before her and she thought she would burst.
Oh gods … my prayers. You answered my prayers!

‘Look, Mama,’ Halgin said, grinning happily.

She nodded seriously. ‘Yes, Halgin. I see.’ She cupped his face –
so lined and thin! Gods, you have tormented him. His beard so much greyer!
She clasped his hands in hers. ‘Rillish Jal Keth. You are home.’

‘Yes, Talia,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I’m finally home.’

Adjunct:
in the Malazan Imperial hierarchy, an officer selected to stand in for, and represent, any High Fist or sufficiently ranked commander

Agayla:
a witch of Malaz Isle

Ascendant:
a title ascribed to any sufficiently powerful individual. It can only be given, never claimed

The Chosen:
another name for the Stormguard, used mostly within the Korel region

The Crimson Guard:
a mercenary company that has famously sworn a vow of eternal opposition against the Malazan Empire

The Fallen One:
another name for the entity variously known as the Shattered God and the Crippled God

Fist:
another name for the island east of the Korel archipelago. Also sometimes applied to the entire region

Imperial Fist:
Malazan Imperial title denoting a commander, military or administrative

Jayashul:
‘She who Brings the Dawn’. Daughter of the Ascendant Osserc

Janzerian Cuirass:
a type of branded armour

L’oric:
a mage, and son of the Ascendant Osserc

Our Lady the Blessed Saviour:
a goddess worshipped in Korel and regions as its one and only true defender and care-giver. Also known as Our Lady, or the Lady

The Priestess / Sorrow:
a Letherii convert to the cult of Dessembrae

The Star of Unta:
Admiral Nok’s flagship

The Stormguard:
a religious military order worshipping the goddess known as Our Lady the Blessed Saviour, and dedicated to the defence of Korel and all lands of its subcontinent

The Stormriders:
a sea-borne race apparently hostile to terrestrial life, currently contained within a body of water known variously as the Ocean of Storms, or Storm Strait. Also known as Riders

The Stormwall:
a discontinuous series of battlements raised along the Korel north coast to defend against the sea-borne Stormriders determined to sweep across the land

Tiste Liosan:
‘The Children of Light’, people of the Warren of Light, a realm known to some as Kurald Liosan, or Kurald Thryllan

The Queen of Dreams:
an Ascendant, also known as the Enchantress

Ian Cameron Esslemont
was born in 1962 in Winnipeg, Canada. He has a degree in Creative Writing, studied and worked as an archaeologist, travelled extensively in South East Asia, and lived in Thailand and Japan for several years. He now lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, with his wife and children and is currently working on his PhD in English Literature. His previous novels,
Night of Knives
and
Return of the Crimson Guard
, are also set in the fantasy world he co-created with his great friend Steven Erikson.

To find out more about the world of Malaz, visit
www.malazanempire.com