The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (12 page)

If she could have driven the nail of immortal presence in this place, however, it would have to be Hood, the God of Death. Yet her instincts said no. She didn’t believe a god had arrived, but
something else had
. What frustrated the sorceress was that she couldn’t decide who among the people surrounding her was the
dangerous one. Something kept drawing her gaze back to the young girl. But the child seemed only half there most of the time.

The voices behind her finally drew her attention. Sergeant Whiskeyjack stood over Quick Ben and the other soldier, both of whom still knelt at Hairlock’s side. Quick Ben clutched an oblong object, wrapped in hides, and was looking up at his sergeant as if awaiting approval.

There was tension between the two men. Frowning, Tattersail walked over. “What are you doing?” she asked Quick Ben, her eyes on the object in the wizard’s almost feminine hands. He seemed not to have heard, his eyes on the sergeant.

Whiskeyjack shot her a glance. “Go ahead, Quick,” he growled, then strode off to stand at the hill’s edge, facing west—toward the Moranth Mountains.

Quick Ben’s fine, ascetic features tightened. He nodded at his companion. “Get ready, Kalam.”

The soldier named Kalam leaned back on his haunches, his hands in his sleeves. The position seemed an odd response to Quick Ben’s request, but the mage seemed satisfied. Tattersail watched as he laid one of his thin, spidery hands on Hairlock’s trembling, blood-splashed chest. He whispered a few chaining words and closed his eyes.

“That sounded like Denul,” Tattersail said, glancing at Kalam, who remained motionless in his crouch. “But not quite,” she added slowly. “He’s twisted it somehow.” She fell silent then, seeing something in Kalam that reminded her of a snake waiting to strike.
Wouldn’t take much to set him off, I think
. Just a few more ill-timed words, a careless move toward Quick Ben or Hairlock. The man was big, bearish, but she remembered his dangerous glide past her.
Snake indeed, the man’s a killer, a soldier who’s reached the next level in the art of murder. Not just a job anymore, this man likes it
. She wondered then if it wasn’t this energy, this quiet promise of menace, that swept over her with the flavor of sexual tension. Tattersail sighed. A day for perversity.

Quick Ben had resumed his chaining words, this time over the object, which he now set down beside Hairlock. She watched as enwreathing power enveloped the wrapped object, watched in growing apprehension as the mage traced his long fingers along the hide’s seams. The energy trickled from him with absolute control. He was her superior in the lore. He had opened a Warren she didn’t even recognize.

“Who are you people?” she whispered, stepping back.

Hairlock’s eyes snapped open, clear of pain and shock. His gaze found Tattersail and the stained smile came easily to his broken lips. “Lost arts, ’Sail. What you’re about to see hasn’t been done in a thousand years.” His face darkened then and the smile faded. Something burned in his eyes. “Think back, woman! Calot and I. When we went down. What did you see? Did you feel something? Something odd? Come on, think! Look at me! See my wound, see how I’m lying! Which direction was I facing when that wave hit?”

She saw the fire in his eyes, of anger mingled with triumph. “I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “Something, yes.” That detached, reasoning part of her mind
that had labored with her throughout the battle, that had screamed in her mind at Calot’s death, screamed in answer to the waves of sorcery—
to the fact that they had come from the plain
. Her eyes narrowed on Hairlock. “Anomander Rake never bothered to aim. He was being indiscriminate. Those waves of power were
aimed
, weren’t they? Coming at us from the wrong side.” She was trembling. “But why? Why would Tayschrenn do that?”

Hairlock reached up one mangled hand and clutched Quick Ben’s cloak. “Use her, Mage. I’ll take the chance.”

Tattersail’s thoughts raced. Hairlock had been sent down into the tunnels by Dujek. And Whiskeyjack and his squad had been down there. A deal had been struck. “Hairlock, what’s happening here?” she demanded, fear clenching the muscles of her neck and shoulders. “What do you mean, ‘use’ me?”

“You’re not blind, woman!”

“Quiet,” Quick Ben said. He laid down the object on the wizard’s ravaged chest, positioning it carefully so that it was centered lengthways along Hairlock’s breastbone. The top end reached to just under the man’s chin, the bottom end extending a few inches beyond what was left of his torso. Webs of black energy spun incessantly over the hide’s mottled surface.

Quick Ben passed a hand over the object and the web spread outward. The glittering black threads traced a chaotic pattern that insinuated Hairlock’s entire body, over flesh and through it, the pattern ever changing, the changes coming faster and faster. Hairlock jerked, his eyes bulging, then fell back. A breath escaped his lungs in a slow, steady hiss. When it ceased with a wet gurgle, he did not draw another.

Quick Ben sat back on his haunches and glanced over at Whiskeyjack. The sergeant was now facing them, his expression unreadable.

Tattersail wiped sweat from her brow with a grimy sleeve. “It didn’t work, then. You failed to do whatever it was you were trying to do.”

Quick Ben climbed to his feet. Kalam picked up the wrapped object and stepped close to Tattersail. The assassin’s eyes were dark, penetrating as they searched her face.

Quick Ben spoke. “Hold on to it, Sorceress. Take it back to your tent and unwrap it there. Above all, don’t let Tayschrenn see it.”

Tattersail scowled. “What? Just like that?” Her gaze fell on the object. “I don’t even know what I’d be accepting. Whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

The girl spoke directly behind her in a voice that was sharp and accusing. “I don’t know what you’ve done, Wizard. I felt you keeping me away. That was unkind.”

Tattersail faced the girl, then glanced back at Quick Ben.
What is all this?
The black man’s expression was glacial, but she saw a flicker around his eyes. Looked like fear.

Whiskeyjack rounded on the girl at her words. “You got something to say about all this, recruit?” His tone was tight.

The girl’s dark eyes slid to her sergeant. She shrugged, then walked away.

Kalam offered the object to Tattersail. “Answers,” he said quietly, in a north Seven Cities accent, melodic and round. “We all need answers, Sorceress. The High Mage killed your comrades. Look at us, we’re all that’s left of the Bridgeburners. Answers aren’t easily . . . attained. Will you pay the price?”

With a final glance at Hairlock’s lifeless body—so brutally torn apart—and the lifeless stare of his eyes, she accepted the object. It felt light in her hands. Whatever was within the hide cocoon was slight in size; parts of it moved, and against her grip she felt knobs and shafts of something hard. She stared at the assassin’s bearish face. “I want,” she said slowly, “to see Tayschrenn get what he deserves.”

“Then we’re in agreement,” Kalam said, smiling. “This is where it starts.”

Tattersail felt her stomach jump at that smile.
Woman, what’s got into you?
She sighed. “Done.” As she turned away to descend the slope and make her way back to the main camp, she caught the girl’s eye. A chill rippled through her. The sorceress stopped. “You, recruit,” she called. “What’s your name?”

The girl smiled as if at a private joke. “Sorry.”

Tattersail grunted. It figured. She tucked the package under an arm and staggered down the slope.

Sergeant Whiskeyjack kicked at a helmet and watched as it tumbled and bounced down the hillside. He spun and glared at Quick Ben. “It’s done?”

The wizard’s eyes darted to Sorry, then he nodded.

“You will draw unwarranted attention on our squad,” the young girl told Whiskeyjack. “High Mage Tayschrenn will notice.”

The sergeant raised an eyebrow. “Unwarranted attention? What in Hood’s name does that mean?”

Sorry made no reply.

Whiskeyjack bit back sharp words. What had Fiddler called her?
An uncanny bitch
. He’d said it to her face and she’d just stared him down with those dead, stony eyes. As much as he hated to admit it, Whiskeyjack shared the sapper’s crude assessment. What made things even more disturbing, this fifteen-year-old girl had Quick Ben scared half out of his wits, and the wizard didn’t want to talk about it. What had the Empire sent him?

His gaze swung back to Tattersail. She was crossing the killing field below. The ravens rose screaming from her path, and remained circling overhead, their caws uneasy and frightened. The sergeant felt Kalam’s solid presence at his side.

“Hood’s Breath,” Whiskeyjack muttered. “That sorceress seems an unholy terror as far as those birds are concerned.”

“Not her,” Kalam said. “It’s what she’s carrying.”

Whiskeyjack scratched his beard, his eyes narrowing. “This stinks. You sure it’s necessary?”

Kalam shrugged.

“Whiskeyjack,” Quick Ben said, behind them, “they
kept
us in the tunnels. Do you think the High Mage couldn’t have guessed what would happen?”

The sergeant faced his wizard. A dozen paces beyond stood Sorry, well within hearing range. Whiskeyjack scowled at her, but said nothing.

After a moment of heavy silence, the sergeant turned his attention to the city. The last of the Moranth legions was marching beneath the West Gate’s arch. Columns of black smoke rose from behind the battered, scarred walls. He knew something of the history of grim enmity between the Moranth and the citizens of the once Free City of Pale. Contested trade routes, two mercantile powers at each other’s throat. And Pale won more often than not. At long last it seemed that the black-armored warriors from beyond the western mountains, whose faces remained hidden behind the chitinous visors on their helms and who spoke in clicks and buzzes, were evening the score. Faintly, beyond the cries of carrion birds, came the wail of men, women, and children dying beneath the sword.

“Sounds like the Empress is keeping her word with the Moranth,” Quick Ben said quietly. “An hour of slaughter. I didn’t think Dujek—”

“Dujek knows his orders,” Whiskeyjack cut in. “And there’s a High Mage taloned on his shoulder.”

“An hour,” Kalam repeated. “Then we clean up the mess.”

“Not our squad,” Whiskeyjack said. “We’ve received new orders.”

The two men stared at their sergeant.

“And you still need convincing?” Quick Ben demanded. “They’re driving us into the ground. They mean to—”

“Enough!” Whiskeyjack barked. “Not now. Kalam, find Fiddler. We need resupply from the Moranth. Round up the rest, Quick, and take Sorry with you. Join me outside the High Fist’s tent in an hour.”

“And you?” Quick Ben asked. “What are you going to do?”

The sergeant heard an ill-concealed yearning in the wizard’s voice. The man needed a direction, or maybe confirmation that they were doing the right thing.
A little late for that
. Even so, Whiskeyjack felt a pang of regret—he couldn’t give what Quick Ben wanted the most. He couldn’t tell him that things would turn out for the best. He sank down on his haunches, his eyes on Pale. “What am I going to do? I’m going to do some thinking, Quick Ben. I’ve been listening to you and Kalam, to Mallet and Fiddler, even Trotts has been jawing in my ear. Well, now it’s my turn. So leave me be, Wizard, and take that damn girl with you.”

Quick Ben flinched, seeming to withdraw. Something in Whiskeyjack’s words had made him very unhappy—or maybe everything.

The sergeant was too tired to worry about it. He had their new assignment to think over. Had he been a religious man, Whiskeyjack would have let blood in Hood’s Bowl, calling upon the shades of his ancestors. As much as he hated to admit it, he shared the feeling among his squad: someone in the Empire wanted the Bridgeburners dead.

Pale was behind them now, the nightmare nothing but the taste of ashes in his mouth. Ahead lay their next destination: the legendary city of Darujhistan. Whiskeyjack had a premonition that a new nightmare was about to begin.

______

Down in the camp just beyond the last crest of denuded hills, horse-drawn carts loaded with wounded soldiers crowded the narrow aisles between the tent rows. All the precise order of the Malazan encampment had disintegrated, and the air was febrile with soldiers screaming their pain, giving voice to horror.

Tattersail threaded her way around the dazed survivors, stepping across puddles of blood in the wagon-ruts, her eyes lingering on an obscene pile of amputated limbs outside the cutter tents. From the massive sprawl of the camp followers’ slum of tents and shelters came a wailing dirge—a broken chorus of thousands of voices, the sound a chilling reminder that war was always a thing of grief.

In some military headquarters back in the Empire’s capital of Unta, three thousand leagues distant, an anonymous aide would paint a red stroke across the 2nd Army on the active list, and then write in fine script beside it:
Pale, late winter, the 1163rd Year of Burn’s Sleep
. Thus would the death of nine thousand men and women be noted. And then forgotten.

Tattersail grimaced.
Some of us won’t forget
. The Bridgeburners harbored some frightening suspicions. The thought of challenging Tayschrenn in a direct confrontation appealed to her sense of outrage and—if the High Mage
had
killed Calot—her feeling of betrayal. But she knew that her emotions had a way of running away with her. A sorcery duel with the Empire’s High Mage would buy her a quick passage to Hood’s Gate. Self-righteous wrath had planted more corpses in the ground than an empire could lay claim to, and as Calot used to say: Shake your fist all you want but dead is dead.

She’d witnessed all too many scenes of death since she’d first joined the ranks of the Malazan Empire, but at least they couldn’t be laid squarely at her feet. That was the difference, and it had been enough for a long time.
Not as I once was. I’ve spent twenty years washing the blood from my hands
. Right now, however, the scene that rose again and again behind her eyes was the empty armor on the hilltop, and it gnawed at her heart. Those men and women had been running to
her
, looking for protection against the horrors of the plain below. It had been a desperate act, a fatal one, but she understood it. Tayschrenn didn’t care about them, but she did. She was one of their own. In past battles they’d fought like rabid dogs to keep enemy legions from killing her. This time, it was a mage war.
Her
territory. Favors were traded in the 2nd. It’s what kept everyone alive, and it was what had made the 2nd a legion of legend. Those soldiers had expectations, and they had the right to them. They’d come to her for salvation. And they died for it.