The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (278 page)

‘You’ve lost me, runt,’ Quick Ben muttered. ‘How long have I been … out?’

‘Long enough. With the city retaken, the Thrall yielding the bones of our Founders, and the Pannions driven into the maw of Brood and your Malazan kin, well, you have missed most of the fun. For the moment, in any case. The tale’s far from done, after all.’

The wizard found his quilted tunic. ‘All of that,’ he muttered as he pulled the heavy garment on, ‘would have been nice to witness, but given my present lack of efficacy—’

‘Ah, as to that…’

Quick Ben glanced at the sticksnare. ‘Go on.’

‘You would best the Crippled God, yet you find yourself unable to use the powers you possess. How, then, will you manage?’

He reached for his leggings. ‘I’ll think of something, eventually. Of course, you think you have an answer for me, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, let’s hear it, then.’

‘My gods are awakened, Wizard. Nose in the air, gleaning the scent of things, given to troubled thought and dour contemplation. You, Ben Adaephon Delat, pursue a worthy course. Sufficiently bold to snare their regard. Leading to certain conclusions. Sacrifices must be made. To your cause. Into the warrens, a necessary step. Thus, the need to supply you with … suitable armour. So that you may be fended from the Crippled God’s poisons.’

Quick Ben massaged his brow. ‘Talamandas, if you and your gods have sewn together some kind of impervious cloak or baldric or something, just say so. Please.’

‘Nothing so … bland, Wizard. No, your flesh itself must be immune to infection. Your mind must be implacable to fevers and other similar plagues. You must be imbued with protective powers that by nature defy all that the Crippled God attempts when he seeks to thwart you.’

‘Talamandas, what you describe is impossible.’

‘Precisely.’ The sticksnare untangled itself and rose. ‘Thus. Before you, stands the worthy sacrifice. Twigs and twine do not sicken. A soul that has known death cannot be made fevered. The protective powers binding me are ancient and vast, the highest of sorceries to trap me within myself—’

‘Yet you were taken. Once before. Torn from your barrow—’

‘By necromancers, rot their foul hearts. There shall be no repetition. My gods have seen to that, with the power of their own blood. I shall accompany you, Ben Adaephon Delat. Into the warrens. I am your shield. Use me. Take me where you will.’

Quick Ben’s dark eyes narrowed as he studied the sticksnare. ‘I don’t walk straight paths, Talamandas. And no matter how little sense my actions may make to you, I won’t waste time with explanations.’

‘My gods have given their trust in you, mortal.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they like you.’

‘Hood’s breath! What
have
I been raving about?’

‘I cannot in truth tell you why they trust you, Wizard, only that they do. Such matters are not for me to question. In your fevered state, you revealed the way your mind works – you wove a net, a web, yet even I could not discern all the links, the connecting threads. Your grasp of causality surpasses my intellect, Ben Adaephon Delat Perhaps my gods caught a glimmer of your design. Perhaps no more than a hint, triggering an instinctive suspicion that in you, mortal, the Crippled God will meet his match.’

Quick Ben climbed to his feet and strode to where his leather armour and Bridgeburner colours waited in a heap near the tent flap. ‘That’s the plan, anyway. All right, Talamandas, we’ve a deal. I admit, I was at a loss as to how to proceed without my warrens.’ He paused, turned to the sticksnare once more. ‘Maybe you can answer me a few questions. Someone else is in this game. Seems to be shaping its own opposition to the Fallen One. Do you know who or what that might be?’

Talamandas shrugged. ‘Elder Gods, Wizard. My Barghast gods conclude their actions have been reactionary by and large—’

‘Reactionary?’

‘Aye, a kind of fighting withdrawal. They seem incapable of changing the future, only preparing for it.’

‘That’s damned fatalistic of them.’

‘Their perennial flaw, Wizard.’

Quick Ben shrugged himself into his armour. ‘Mind you,’ he muttered, ‘it’s not really their battle. Except for maybe K’rul…’

Talamandas leapt to the floor and scrambled to stand directly in front of the wizard. ‘What did you say? K’rul? What do you know of
him
?’

Quick Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, he made the warrens, after all. We swim his immortal blood – we mages, and everyone else who employs the pathways of sorcery, including the gods. Yours, too, I imagine.’

The sticksnare hopped about, twig fingers clutching at the yellowed grass bound to its acorn head. ‘No-one knows all that! No-one! You – you – how can you – aagh! The web! The web of your infernal brain!’

‘K’rul is in worse shape even than Burn, given the nature of the Crippled God’s assault,’ Quick Ben said. ‘So, if I felt helpless, imagine how
he
must feel. Makes that fatalism a little more understandable, don’t you think? And if that’s not enough, all the last surviving Elder Gods have lived under a host of nasty curses for a long, long time. Haven’t they? Given those circumstances, who wouldn’t be feeling a little fatalistic?’

‘Bastard mortal! Warp and weft! Deadly snare! Out with it, damn you!’

Quick Ben shrugged. ‘Your Barghast gods aren’t ready to go it alone. Not by throwing all their weight behind me, in any case. Not a chance, Talamandas – they’re still babes in the woods. Now, the Elder Gods have been on the defensive – tried to go it alone, I imagine. Legendary hubris, with that lot. But that wasn’t working, so they’ve gone looking for allies.

‘Thus … who was at work refashioning you into something capable of shielding me in the warrens? Hood, for one, I’d imagine. Layers of death protecting your soul. And your own Barghast gods, of course. Cutting those binding spells that constrained your own power. And Fener’s thrown you a bone, or Treach, or whoever’s on that particular roost right now – you can hit back if something comes at you. And I’d guess the Queen of Dreams has stepped in, a bridge between you and the Sleeping Goddess, to turn you into a lone and likely formidable crusader against the poison in her flesh, and in K’rul’s veins. So, you’re all ready to go, but where? How? And that’s where I come in. How am I doing so far, Talamandas?’

‘We are relying upon you, Ben Adaephon Delat,’ the sticksnare growled.

‘To do what?’

‘Whatever it is you’re planning to do!’ Talamandas shrieked. ‘And it had better work!’

After a long moment, Quick Ben grinned down at the creature.

But said nothing.

The sticksnare scrambled after Quick Ben when he left the tent The mage paused to look around. What he had thought to be rain had been, in fact, water dripping from the leaves of a broad, verdant oak, its branches hanging over the tent It was late afternoon, the sky clear overhead.

A Barghast encampment was sprawled out on all sides. Wicker and hide dwellings rose from the forest floor along the base of a lightly treed slope directly behind the wizard, whilst before him – to the south – were the dun-coloured humps of rounded tipis. The different styles reflected at least two distinct tribes. The mud-churned pathways crisscrossing the encampment were crowded with warriors, many wounded or bearing fallen kin.

‘Where,’ Quick Ben asked Talamandas, ‘are my fellow Bridgeburners?’

‘First into Capustan, Wizard, and still there. At the Thrall, likely.’

‘Did they get into any fighting?’

‘Only at the north gate – breaking through the siege line. Swiftly done. There are none wounded, Ben Adaephon Delat. Making your tribe unique, yes?’

‘So I see,’ Quick Ben murmured, watching the warriors filing into the camp. ‘Not much duelling of late, I take it.’

The sticksnare grunted. ‘True enough. Our gods have spoken to our shamans, who have in turn conveyed to the clan warriors a … chastisement. It would appear that the White Faces are not yet done with these Pannions – or with your war, Wizard.’

Quick Ben glanced down. ‘You’ll be marching south with us, Talamandas?’

‘We shall. It is not enough blunting the sword – we must sever the hand wielding it.’

‘I need to contact my allies … in the army to the west Should I attempt a warren?’

‘I am ready.’

‘Good. Let’s find somewhere private.’

*   *   *

Two leagues to the west of Capustan, in the shadows edging down a broad slope, the massed ranks of Malazan heavy infantry locked shields and advanced. Marines armed with crossbows ranged ahead, firing quarrels into the milling line of Betaklites less than thirty paces distant.

Whiskeyjack watched through the slits of his helm’s visor from where he had reined in at the hill’s crest, his horse tossing its head at the smell of blood. Aides and messengers gathered around him.

Dujek’s flank attack on the Septarch’s regiment of archers had virtually eliminated the whizzing flight of arrows from the valley side opposite. Whiskeyjack’s heavy infantry had drawn their fire, which had provided Onearm’s heavy cavalry the time needed to mount a charge along the north slope. Had the Pannion archers the discipline – and competent commanders – they would have had time to wheel in formation and loose at least three flights at the charging cavalry, perhaps sufficient to beat off the attack. Instead, they had milled in confusion upon seeing the horsewarriors closing on their right flank, then had disintegrated into a rout. Pursuit and wholesale slaughter followed.

The marines slipped back through aisles in the advancing heavy infantry. They would reappear on each wing, resuming their crossbow-fire against the enemy line’s edges. Before then, however, four thousand silent, scale-armoured and shield-bearing veterans closed with the Betaklites. Javelins preceded their charge when but a dozen paces remained, the long-headed, barbed spears cutting into the Pannion line – a tactic peculiar to Onearm’s Host – then thrusting swords snapped from scabbards. And the Malazans surged forward.

The Betaklite line crumpled.

Whiskeyjack’s heavy infantry re-formed into individual four-squad wedges, each one independently driving deeper into the Pannion ranks once the battle was fully joined.

The details before the commander were precise in following the Malazan doctrine of set battles, as devised by Dassem Ultor decades past. Shield-locked lines and squares worked best in defending engagements. When delivering chaos into massed enemy ranks in an assault, however, it was found that smaller, tighter units worked best. A successful advance that drove the enemy back often lost its momentum, and, indeed, its contact with the retreating foes, amidst a corpse-cluttered ground and the need to maintain closed ranks. Almost a thousand four-squad wedges, of thirty-five to forty soldiers each, on the other hand, actually delayed the moment of rout. Flight was more difficult, communication problematic, and lines of sight to fellow soldiers often broken – none knew what the others were doing, and in the face of that uncertainty, they often hesitated before fleeing – a fatal option. There was another choice, of course, and that was to fight, but it took a very special army to be capable of maintaining such discipline and adaptability in those circumstances, and in those instances the Malazan forces would hold their shield-locked formation.

These Betaklites possessed none of these qualities. Within fifty heartbeats, the division was shattered. Entire companies, finding themselves surrounded by the silent, deadly Malazans, flung their weapons down.

This part of the battle, Whiskeyjack concluded, was finished.

A Saltoan messenger rode up to Whiskeyjack’s side. ‘Sir! Word from the warlord!’

Whiskeyjack nodded.

‘The Ilgres Barghast and their Rhivi skirmishers have broken the Seerdomin and Urdomen. There was a Mage Cadre active in the engagement, at least at the start, but the Tiste Andii nullified them. Brood owns the field on the south flank.’

‘Very good,’ Whiskeyjack granted. ‘Anything else?’

‘Sir, a well-aimed slingstone from a Rhivi gave Septarch Kulpath a third eye – killed the bastard outright. We are in possession of his army’s standard, sir.’

‘Inform the warlord that the Betaklites, Beklites, Scalandi and Desandi companies have been defeated. We command the centre and north. Enquire of the warlord as to our next move – my scouts inform me that upwards of two hundred thousand Tenescowri are encamped half a league to the east. Rather mauled by all accounts, yet potentially a nuisance. At the same time – and on this Dujek and I are agreed – an unmitigated slaughter of these peasants would not sit well with us.’

‘I will convey your words, Commander.’ The messenger saluted, swung his horse round, and rode southward.

A slash of darkness opened before Whiskeyjack, startling his horse and those of the riders nearest him. Snorting, stamping, the beast came close to rearing until a low growl from Whiskeyjack calmed it. His retinue managed the same.

Korlat emerged from her warren. Her black armour glittered with blood-spray, but he saw no obvious wounds. None the less …

‘Are you injured?’

She shook her head. ‘A hapless Pannion warlock. Whiskeyjack, I need you to come with me. Are you done here?’

He grimaced, ever loath to leave a battle – even one drawing to a quick, satisfying conclusion. ‘I’ll assume it’s important – enough to have you risk your warren – so the answer is yes. Do we go far?’

‘To Dujek’s command tent.’

‘He’s taken wounds?’

‘No. All is well, you old worrier,’ she said, cracking a smile. ‘How long would you have me wait?’

‘Well enough,’ he growled. He turned to an officer sitting on a roan destrier nearby. ‘Barack, you’re in charge here.’

The young man’s eyes widened. ‘Sir, I’m a captain—’

‘So here’s your chance. Besides, I’m a sergeant – at least I would be if I was still drawing coin on the Empress’s paylists. Besides again, you’re the only officer present who doesn’t have his or her own company to worry about.’

‘But sir, I am Dujek’s liaison to the Black Moranth—’

‘And are they here?’

‘Uh, no sir.’

‘So, enough jawing and make sure things get wrapped up here, Barack.’