The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (761 page)

All of the defiance within her was obliterated when she had seen for herself the birth of a demon-kissed monstrosity – the taloned hands and feet, the scaled, elongated face, the blunt tail twitching like a headless worm, the eyes of lurid green. If naught but the taloned hands and feet had marked the demon's seed, the coven would have chosen this newborn, for there was true power in demonic blood when no more than a single drop trickled in the child's veins. More than that, and the creation was an abomination.

Grotesque babes crawling in the muck of the sea's floor, claws gouging furrows in the dark, the sea's legion, the army awaiting us all.

The seeds thrived in the foaming waves where they met the land, generation upon generation. Flung high onto the shore, they sank into the ground. Dwelling within living creatures, prey and predator; bound inside plants; adhering to the very blades of grass, the leaves of the trees – these seeds could not be escaped: another bitter truth among the Shake. When they found a woman's womb where a child was already growing, the seed stole its fate. Seeking…something, yet yielding naught but a shape that warred with that of the human.

The demons had been pure, once. Birthing their own kind, a world of mothers and offspring. The seeds had dwelt in the sea found in demonic wombs. Until the war that saw the bellies of those mothers slit open, spilling what belonged inside out into this world – the seeds even the sea sought to reject. A war of slaughter – yet the demons had found a way to survive, to this very day. In the swirling spume of tidal pools, in the rush of tumbling, crashing waves. Lost, yet not defeated. Gone, yet poised to return.

Seeking the right mother.

So the witches remained. Yan Tovis had believed the coven obliterated, crushed into extinction – the Letherii well knew that resistance to tyranny was nurtured in schools of faith, espoused by old, bitter priests and priestesses, by elders who would work through the foolish young – use them like weapons, flung away when broken, melodramatically mourned when destroyed. Priests and priestesses whose version of faith justified the abuse of their own followers.

The birth of a priesthood, Yan Tovis now understood, forced a hierarchy upon piety, as if the rules of servitude were malleable, where such a scheme – shrouded in mysterious knowledge and learning – conveyed upon the life of a priest or priestess greater value and virtue than those of the ignorant common folk.

In her years of Letherii education, Yan Tovis had seen how the arrival of shouldermen – of warlocks and witches – was in truth a devolution among the Shake, a devolution from truly knowing the god that was the shore. Artifice and secular ambition, withholding sacred knowledge from those never to be initiated – these were not the shore's will.
No, only what the warlocks and witches wanted.

Taloned hands and feet have proved iconic indeed.

But power came with demonic blood. And so long as every child born with such power and allowed to survive was initiated into the coven, then that power remained exclusive.

The Letherii in their conquest of the Shake had conducted a pogrom against the coven.

And had failed.

With all her being, Yan Tovis wished they had succeeded.

The Shake were gone as a people. Even the soldiers of her company – each one carefully selected over the years on the basis of Shake remnants in their blood – were in truth more Letherii than Shake. She had done little, after all, to awaken their heritage.

Yet I chose them, did I not? I wanted their loyalty, beyond that of a Letherii soldier for his or her Atri-Preda.

Admit it, Twilight. You are a queen now, and these soldiers –
these Shake
– know it. And it is what you sought in the depths of your own ambition.
And now, it seemed, she would have to face the truth of that ambition, the stirring of her noble blood – seeking its proper pre-eminence, its
right
.

What has brought my half-brother to the shore? Did he ride as a Shake, or a Letherii Master at Arms for a Dresh-Preda?
But she found she could not believe her own question. She knew the answer, quivering like a knife in her soul.
The shore is blind…

They rode on in the dark.

We were never as the Nerek, the Tarthenal and the others. We could raise no army against the invaders. Our belief in the shore held no vast power, for it is a belief in the mutable, in transformation. A god with no face but every face. Our temple is the strand where the eternal war between land and sea is waged, a temple that rises only to crumble yet again. Temple of sound, of smell, taste and tears upon every fingertip.

Our coven healed wounds, scoured away diseases, and murdered babies.

The Tarthenal viewed us with horror. The Nerek hunted our folk in the forests. For the Faered, we were child-snatchers in the night. They would leave us husks of bread on tree stumps, as if we were no better than malignant crows.

Of these people, these Shake, I am now Queen.

And a man who would be her husband awaited her. On the Isle.

Errant take me, I am too tired for this.

Horse-hoofs splashing through puddles where the old road dipped – they were nearing the shore. Ahead, the land rose again – some long-ago high tide mark, a broad ridge of smoothed stones and cobbles bedded in sandy clay – the kind of clay that became shale beneath the weight of time, pocked by the restless stones. In that shale one could find embedded shells, mollusc fragments, proof of the sea's many victories.

The trees were sparser here, bent down by the wind that she could not yet feel on her face – a calm that surprised her, given the season. The smell of the shore was heavy in the air, motionless and fetid.

They slowed their mounts. From the as yet unseen sea there was no sound, not even the whisper of gentle waves. As if the world on the other side of the ridge had vanished.

‘Tracks here, sir,' one of her soldiers said as they drew to a halt close to the slope. ‘Riders, skirting the bank, north and south both.'

‘As if they were hunting someone,' another observed.

Yan Tovis held up a gauntleted hand.

Horses to the north, riding at the canter, approaching.

Struck by a sudden, almost superstitious fear, Yan Tovis made a gesture, and her soldiers drew their swords. She reached for her own.

The first of the riders appeared.

Letherii.

Relaxing, Yan Tovis released her breath. ‘Hold, soldier!'

The sudden command clearly startled the figure and the three other riders behind it. Hoofs skidding on loose pebbles.

Armoured as if for battle – chain hauberks, the blackened rings glistening, visors drawn down on their helms. The lead rider held a long-handled single-bladed axe in his right hand; those behind him wielded lances, the heads wide and barbed as if the troop had been hunting boar.

Yan Tovis nudged her horse round and guided it a few steps closer. ‘I am Atri-Preda Yan Tovis,' she said.

A tilt of the helmed head from the lead man. ‘Yedan Derryg,' he said in a low voice, ‘Master at Arms, Boaral Keep.'

She hesitated, then said, ‘The Watch.'

‘Twilight,' he replied. ‘Even in this gloom, I can see it is you.'

‘I find that difficult to believe – you fled—'

‘Fled, my Queen?'

‘The House of our mother, yes.'

‘Your father and I did not get along, Twilight. You were but a toddler when last I saw you. But that does not matter. I see now in your face what I saw then. No mistaking it.'

Sighing, she dismounted.

After a moment, the others did the same. Yedan gestured with a tilt of his head and he and Yan Tovis walked off a short distance. Stood beneath the tallest tree this close to the ridge – a dead pine – as a light rain began to fall.

‘I have just come from the Keep,' she said. ‘Your Dresh attempted to escape arrest and is dead. Or will be soon. I have had a word with the witches. There will be Tiste Edur, from Rennis, but by the time they arrive the investigation will be over and I will have to apologize for wasting their time.'

Yedan said nothing. The grilled visor thoroughly hid his features, although the black snarl of his beard was visible – it seemed he was slowly chewing something.

‘Watch,' she resumed, ‘you called me “Queen” in front of your soldiers.'

‘They are Shake.'

‘I see. Then, you are here…at the shore—'

‘Because I am the Watch, yes.'

‘That title is without meaning,' she said, rather more harshly than she had intended. ‘It's an honorific, some old remnant—'

‘I believed the same,' he cut in –
like an older brother, damn him
– ‘until three nights ago.'

‘Why are you here, then? Who are you looking for?'

‘I wish I could answer you better than I can. I am not sure why I am here, only that I am summoned.'

‘By whom?'

He seemed to chew some more, then he said, ‘By the shore.'

‘I see.'

‘As for who – or what – I am looking for, I cannot say at all. Strangers have arrived. We heard them this night, yet no matter where we rode, no matter how quickly we arrived, we found no-one. Nor any sign – no tracks, nothing. Yet…they are here.'

‘Perhaps ghosts then.'

‘Perhaps.'

Twilight slowly turned. ‘From the sea?'

‘Again, no tracks on the strand. Sister, since we have arrived, the air has not stirred. Not so much as a sigh. Day and night, the shore is still.' He tilted his head upward. ‘Now, this rain – the first time.'

A murmur from the soldiers drew their attention. They were facing the ridge, six motionless spectres, metal and leather gleaming.

Beyond the ridge, the fitful rise and ebb of a glow.

‘This,' Yedan said, and he set off.

Yan Tovis followed.

They scrambled through loose stones, stripped branches and naked roots, pulling themselves onto the rise. The six soldiers in their wake now on the slope, Yan Tovis moved to her half-brother's side, pushing through the soft brush until they both emerged onto the shoreline.

Where they halted, staring out to sea.

Ships.

A row of ships, all well offshore. Reaching to the north, to the south.

All burning.

‘Errant's blessing,' Yan Tovis whispered.

Hundreds of ships. Burning.

Flames playing over still water, columns of smoke rising, lit from beneath like enormous ash-dusted coals in the bed of the black sky.

‘Those,' Yedan said, ‘are not Letherii ships. Nor Edur.'

‘No,' Twilight whispered, ‘they are not.'

Strangers have arrived.

‘What means this?' There was raw fear in the question, and Yan Tovis turned to look at the soldier who had spoken. Faint on his features, the orange glow of the distant flames.

She looked back at the ships. ‘Dromons,' she said. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, a kind of febrile excitement – strangely dark with malice and…
savage delight.

‘What name is that?' Yedan asked.

‘I know them – those prows, the rigging. Our search – a distant continent. An empire. We killed hundreds – thousands – of its subjects. We clashed with its fleets.' She was silent for a dozen breaths, then she turned to one of her soldiers. ‘Ride back to the Keep. Make sure the Dresh is dead. The company is to leave immediately – we will meet you north of Rennis on the coast road. Oh, and bring those damned witches with you.'

Yedan said, ‘What—'

She cut off her half-brother with cruel glee. ‘You are the Watch. Your Queen needs you.' She glared at him. ‘You will ride with us, Yedan. With your troop.'

The bearded jaw bunched, then, ‘Where?'

‘The Isle.'

‘What of the Letherii and their masters? We should send warning.'

Eyes on the burning hulks in the sea, she almost snarled her reply. ‘We killed their subjects. And clearly they will not let that pass. Errant take the Letherii and the Edur.' She spun round, making for her horse. The others scrambled after her. ‘Strangers, Yedan? Not to me. They followed us.' She swung herself onto her horse and tugged it towards the north trail. ‘We left a debt in blood,' she said, baring her teeth. ‘Malazan blood.
And it seems they will not let that stand.'

They are here. On this shore.

The Malazans are on our shore.