The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (105 page)

With the exception of the sandstorm—which they had waited out in Trob—and the unsettling news of a massacre at Ladro Keep, told to them by an outrider from a well-guarded caravan bound for Ehrlitan, the journey to within sight of G'danisban had proved uneventful for Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar.

Although Fiddler knew that the risks that lay ahead, south of the small city out in the Pan'potsun Odhan, were severe enough to eat holes in his stomach, he had anticipated a lull in the final approach to G'danisban. What he had not expected to find was a ragtag renegade army encamped outside the city walls.

The army's main force straddled the road but was shielded by a thin line of hills on the north side. The canal road led the three unsuspecting travelers into the camp's perimeter lines. There had been no warning.

A company of footmen commanded the road from flanking hills and oversaw diligent questioning of all who sought entry to the city. The company was supported by a score of Arak tribal horsewarriors who were evidently entrusted with riding down any traveler inclined to flee the approach to the makeshift barricade.

Fiddler and his charges would have to ride on through and trust to their disguises. The sapper was anything but confident, although this lent a typically Gral scowl to his narrow features which elicited a wholly proper wariness in two of the three guards who stepped forward to intercept them at the barricade.

“The city is closed,” the unimpressed guard nearest them said, punctuating his words by spitting between the hooves of Fiddler's mount.

It would later be said that even a Gral's horse knew an insult when it saw one. Before Fiddler could react, his mount's head snapped forward, stripping the reins from the sapper's hands, and bit the guardsman in the face. The horse had twisted its head so that the jaws closed round the man's cheeks and tore into cheeks, upper lip and nose. Blood gushed. The guardsman dropped like a sack of stones, a piercing, keening sound rising from him.

For lack of anything else to grip, Fiddler snagged the gelding's ears and pulled hard, backing the beast away even as it prepared to stomp on the guard's huddled form. Hiding his shock behind an even fiercer frown, the sapper unleashed a stream of Gral curses at the two remaining men, who had both backed frantically clear before lowering their pikes. “Foul snot of rabid dogs! Anal crust of dysenteried goats! Such a sight for two young newlyweds to witness! Will you curse their marriage but two weeks since the blessed day? Shall I loose the fleas on my head to rend your worthless flesh from your jellied bones?”

As Fiddler roared every Gral utterance of disgust he could recall in an effort to keep the guards unbalanced, a troop of the Arak horsewarriors rode up with savage haste.

“Gral! Ten jakatas for your horse!”

“Twelve, Gral! To me!”

“Fifteen and my youngest daughter!”

“Five jakatas for three tail hairs!”

Fiddler turned his fiercest frown on the riders. “Not one of you is fit to smell my horse's farts!” But he grinned, unstrapping a beer-filled bladder and tossing it one-handed to the nearest Arak. “But let us camp with your troop this night and for a sliver you may feel its heat with your palms—once only! For more you must pay!”

With wild grins, the Araks passed the skin between them, each taking deep swigs to finalize the ritual exchange. By sharing beer, Fiddler had granted them status as equals, the gesture stripping the cutting barb from the insult he had thrown their way.

Fiddler glanced back at Crokus and Apsalar. They looked properly shaken. Biting back his own nausea, the sapper winked.

The guards had recovered but before they could close in, the tribesmen drove their mounts to block them.

“Ride with us!” one of the Araks shouted to Fiddler. As one, the troop wheeled about. Regaining the reins, Fiddler spurred the gelding after them, sighing when he heard behind him the newlyweds following suit.

It was to be a race to the Arak camp, and, true to its sudden legendary status, the Gral horse was determined to burst every muscle in its body to win. Fiddler had never before ridden such a game beast, and he found himself grinning in spite of himself, even as the image of the guardsman's ravaged face remained like a chill knot in the pit of his stomach.

The Arak tipis lined the edges of a nearby hill's windswept summit, each set wide apart so that no shade from a neighbor's could cast insult. Women and children came to the crest to watch the race, screaming as Fiddler's mount burst through the leading line, swerving to throw a shoulder into the fastest competitor. That horse stumbled, almost pitching its rider from his wood and felt saddle, then righted itself with a furious scream at being driven from the race.

Unimpeded, Fiddler leaned forward as his horse reached the slope and surged up its grassy side. The line of watchers parted as he reached the crest and reined in amidst the tipis.

As any plains tribe would, the Arak chose hilltops rather than valley floors for their camps. The winds kept the insects to a minimum—boulders held down the tipi edges to prevent the hide tents from blowing away—and the rising and setting of the sun could be witnessed to mark ritual thanksgiving.

The camp's layout was a familiar one to Fiddler, who had ridden with Wickan scouts over these lands during the Emperor's campaigns. Marking the center of the ring of tipis was a stone-lined hearth. Four wooden posts off to one side, between two tipis, and joined together with a single hemp rope, provided the corral for the horses. Bundles of rolled felt lay drying nearby, along with tripods bearing stretched hides and strips of meat.

The dozen or so camp dogs surrounded the snapping gelding as Fiddler paused in the saddle to take his bearings. The scrawny, yipping mongrels might prove a problem, he realized, but he hoped that their suspicions would apply to all strangers, Gral included. If not, then his disguise was over.

The troop arrived moments later, the horsewarriors shouting and laughing as they reined in and threw themselves from their saddles. Appearing last on the summit's crest were Crokus and Apsalar, neither of whom seemed ready to share in the good humor.

Seeing their faces reminded Fiddler of the mangled guardsman on the road below. He regained his scowl and slipped from the saddle. “The city is closed?” he shouted. “Another Mezla folly!”

The Arak rider who'd spoken before strode up, a fierce grin on his lean face. “Not Mezla! G'danisban has been liberated! The southern hares have fled the Whirlwind's promise.”

“Then why was the city closed to us? Are we Mezla?”

“A cleansing, Gral! Mezla merchants and nobles infest G'danisban. They were arrested yesterday and this day they are being executed. Tomorrow morning you shall lead your blessed couple into a free city. Come, this night we celebrate!”

Fiddler squatted in Gral fashion. “Has Sha'ik raised the Whirlwind, then?” He glanced back at Crokus and Apsalar, as if suddenly regretting having taken on the responsibility. “Has the war begun, Arak?”

“Soon,” he said. “We were cursed with impatience,” he added with a smirk.

Crokus and Apsalar approached. The Arak went off to assist in the preparations for the night's festivities. Coins were flung at the gelding's hooves and hands cautiously reached out to rest lightly on the animal's neck and flanks. For the moment the three travelers were alone.

“That was a sight I will never forget,” Crokus said, “though I wish to Hood I could. Will the poor man live?”

Fiddler shrugged. “If he chooses to.”

“We're camping here tonight?” Apsalar asked, looking around.

“Either that or insult these Arak and risk disembowelling.”

“We will not fool them for much longer,” Apsalar said. “Crokus doesn't speak a word of this land's tongue, and mine is a Malazan's accent.”

“That soldier was my age,” the Daru thief muttered.

Frowning, the sapper said, “Our only other choice is to ride into G'danisban, so that we may witness the Whirlwind's vengeance.”

“Another celebration of what's to come?” Crokus demanded. “This damned Apocalypse you're always talking about? I get the feeling that this land's people do nothing but talk.”

Fiddler cleared his throat. “Tonight's celebration in G'danisban,” he said slowly, “will be the flaying alive of a few hundred Malazans, Crokus. If we show eagerness to witness such an event, these Arak may not be offended by our leaving early.”

Apsalar turned to watch half a dozen tribesmen approach. “Try it, Fiddler,” she said.

The sapper came close to saluting. He hissed a curse. “You giving me orders, Recruit?”

She blinked. “I think I was giving orders…when you were still clutching the hem of your mother's dress, Fiddler. I know—the one who possessed me. It's
his
instincts that are ringing like steel on stone right now. Do as I say.”

The chance for a retort vanished as the Arak arrived. “You are blessed, Gral!” one of them said. “A Gral clan is on its way to join the Apocalypse! Let us hope that like you they bring their own beer!”

Fiddler made a kin gesture, then soberly shook his head. “It cannot be,” he said, mentally holding his breath. “I am outcast. More, these newlyweds insist we enter the city…to witness the executions in further blessing of their binding. I am their escort, and so must obey their commands.”

Apsalar stepped forward and bowed. “We wish no offense,” she said.

It wasn't going well. The Arak faces arrayed before them had darkened. “Outcast? No kin to honor your trail, Gral? Perhaps we shall hold you for your brothers' vengeance, and in exchange they leave us your horse.”

With exquisite perfection, Apsalar stamped one foot to announce the rage of a pampered daughter and new wife. “I am with child! Defy me and be cursed! We go to the city! Now!”

“Hire one of us for the rest of your journey, blessed lady! But leave the riven Gral! He is not fit to serve you!”

Trembling, Apsalar prepared to lift her veil, announcing the intention to voice her curse.

The Araks flinched back.

“You covet the gelding! This is nothing more than greed! I shall now curse you all—”

“Forgive!” “We bow down, blessed lady!” “Touch not your veil!” “Ride on, then! To the city below! Ride on!”

Apsalar hesitated. For a moment Fiddler thought she would curse them anyway. Instead she spun about. “Escort us once more, Gral,” she said.

Surrounded by worried, frightened faces, the three mounted up.

An Arak who had spoken earlier now stepped close to the sapper. “Stay only the night, then ride on hard, Gral. Your kin will pursue you.”

“Tell them,” Fiddler said, “I won the horse in a fair fight. Tell them that.”

The Arak frowned. “Will they know the story?”

“Which clan?”

“Sebark.”

The sapper shook his head.

“Then they shall ride you down for the pleasure of it. But I shall tell them your words, anyway. Indeed, your horse was worth killing for.”

Fiddler thought back to the drunken Gral he'd bought the gelding from in Ehrlitan. Three jakata. The tribesmen who moved into the cities lost much. “Drink my beer this night, Arak?”

“We shall. Before the Gral arrive. Ride on.”

 

As they rode onto the road and approached G'danisban's north gate, Apsalar said to him, “We are in trouble now, aren't we?”

“Is that what your instincts tell you, lass?”

She grimaced.

“Aye,” Fiddler sighed. “That we are. I made a mistake with that outcast story. I think now, given your performance back there, that the threat of your curse would have sufficed.”

“Probably.”

Crokus cleared his throat. “Are we going to actually watch these executions, Fid?”

The sapper shook his head. “Not a chance. We're riding straight through, if we can.” He glanced at Apsalar. “Let your courage falter, lass. Another temper tantrum and the citizens will rush you out the south gate on a bed of gold.”

She acknowledged him with a wry smile.

Don't fall in love with this woman, Fid, old friend, else you loosen your guard of the lad's life, and call it an accident of fate…

 

Spilled blood stained the worn cobbles under the arched north gate and a scatter of wooden toys lay broken and crushed to either side of the causeway. From somewhere close came the screams of children dying.

“We can't do this,” Crokus said, all the color gone from his face. He rode at Fiddler's side, Apsalar holding her mount close behind them. Looters and armed men appeared now and then farther down the street, but the way into the city seemed strangely open. A haze of smoke hung over everything, and the burnedout shells of merchant stores and residences gaped desolation on all sides.

They rode amidst scorched furniture, shattered pottery and ceramics, and bodies twisted in postures of violent death. The children's dying screams, off to their right, had mercifully stopped, but other, more distant screams rose eerily from G'danisban's heart.

They were startled by a figure darting across their paths, a young girl, naked and bruised. She ran as if oblivious to them, and clambered under a brokenwheeled cart not fifteen paces from Fiddler and his party. They watched her scramble under cover.

Six armed men approached from a side street. Their weapons were haphazard, and none wore armor. Blackened blood stained their ragged telaban. One spoke. “Gral! You see a girl? We're not done with her.”

Even as he asked his question, another of them grinned and gestured to the cart. The girl's knees and feet were clearly visible.

“A Mezla?” Fiddler asked.

The group's leader shrugged. “Well enough. Fear not, Gral, we'll share.”

The sapper heard Apsalar draw a long, slow breath. He eased back in his saddle.

The group split in passing around Fiddler, Crokus and Apsalar. The sapper casually leaned after the nearest man and thrust the point of his long-knife into the base of his skull. The Gral gelding pivoted beneath Fiddler and kicked out with both rear hooves, shattering another man's chest and propelling him backward, sprawling on the cobbles.