The Complete Malazan Book of the Fallen (795 page)

But never mind Tarr. It was Koryk who was riding her, uh, mind. A killer, oh yes, a real killer. Sort of like her but without the subtlety, and that made the two of them a good match. Dangerous, scary, the core of the nastiest squad in the Bonehunters. Oh, Balm's crew might argue that, especially that yelping Throatslitter, but they were lounging round on a damned island right now, weren't they? Not out here doing what marines were supposed to do, infiltrating, kicking the white squirmy balls outa Edur and Letherii and blowing up the occasional company just to remind Hood who did all the delivering.

She liked this life, yes she did. Better than that squalid existence she'd climbed out of back home. Poor village girl cowering in the ghostly shadow of a dead sister. Wondering when the next vanishing of the shoals would spell her watery demise. Oh, but the boys had wanted her once she'd been the only one left, wanted to fill that shadow with their own, as if that was even possible.

But Koryk here, well, that was different. Felt different, anyway. Because she was older now, she supposed. More experienced, so much so that she now knew what stirred her little winged flutter-bird. Watching Koryk kill people, ah, that had been so sweet, and lucky everyone else was too busy to have heard her moan and nearly squeal and guess what it'd meant.

Revelations were the world's sharpest spice, and she'd just had a noseful. Making the night somehow clearer, cleaner. Every detail blade-edged, eager to be seen, noted by her glittering eyes. She heard the small creatures moving through the scrub of the fallow field, heard the frogs race up the boles of nearby trees. Mosquito hum and—

A sudden blinding flash to the south, a bloom of fiery light lifting skyward above a distant treeline. A moment later the rumble of twin detonations reached them. Everyone motionless now, crouched down. The small creatures frozen, quivering, terrified.

‘Bad time for an ambush,' Koryk muttered as he worked his way back, slipping past Tarr.

‘So not one sprung by Malazan marines,' Fiddler said, moving up to meet Koryk and Tarr. ‘That was a league away, maybe less. Anyone recall which squads were to our right first night?'

Silence.

‘Should we head over, Sergeant?' Tarr asked. He had drawn his shortsword. ‘Could be they need our help.'

Gesler arrived. ‘Stormy says he heard sharpers after the cussers,' the sergeant said. ‘Four or five.'

‘Could be the ambush got turned,' Smiles said, struggling to control her breathing.
Oh, take us there, you damned sergeant. Let me see Koryk fight again. It's this itch, you see…

‘Not in our orders,' Fiddler said. ‘If they've been mauled, the survivors will swing north or south and come looking for friends. We keep going.'

‘They come up to find us and they might have a thousand enemy on their heels,' Gesler said.

‘Always a possibility,' Fiddler conceded. ‘All right, Koryk, back on point. We go on, but with extra stealth. We're not the only ones to see and hear that, so we might run into a troop riding hard across our path. Set us a cautious pace, soldier.'

Nodding, Koryk set out along the trail.

Smiles licked her lips, glowered at Tarr. ‘Put the damned pig-sticker away, Tarr.'

‘That's “Corporal” to you, Smiles.'

She rolled her eyes. ‘Hood's breath, it's gone to his head.'

‘And those aren't knives in your hands?'

Smiles sheathed them, said nothing.

‘Go on,' Fiddler ordered them. ‘Koryk's waiting.'

 

Corabb picked up his end of the stretcher again and set out after the others. Bottle had slept through that distant succession of explosions. Sign of just how exhausted the poor man was. Still, it was unnerving not having him awake and keeping an eye on things, the way he could leap from animal to animal. Birds, too. And even insects. Although Corabb wondered just how far an insect could see.

He reached up and crushed a mosquito against one eyelid. The stretcher pitched behind him and he heard Cuttle swear under his breath. Corabb quickly regained his hold on the sapling. Damned insects, he needed to stop thinking about them. Because thinking about them led to hearing and feeling them, crawling and biting everywhere and him with both hands used up. This wasn't like the desert. You could see chigger fleas coming on the wind, could hear a bloodfly from five paces, could pretty much guess that under every rock or stone there was a scorpion or a big hairy spider or a snake all of which wanted to kill you. Simple and straightforward, in other words. None of this devious whispering in the night, this whining at the ear, this winged flit up a man's nostril. Or crawling into the hair to take nips of flesh that left a swollen, oozing, damnably itching hole.

And then there were the slithery things that sucked blood. Hid under leaves waiting for some poor bastard handless soldier to go past. And ticks. And plants that, when one brushed innocently against them, started up an awful itching rash that then leaked some kind of oil – this was a true underworld, peopled by demon farmers and every life form of the night a raving, rapacious devourer of desert-born men. And never mind the Tiste Edur and the spineless Letherii. Imagine, fighting at the behest of tyrannical masters. Had they no pride? Might be smart to take a prisoner or two, just to get some answers. A Letherii. He might mention the idea to the sergeant. Fiddler was all right with suggestions. In fact, the entire Malazan Army seemed all right with that kind of thing. Sort of a constant warrior gathering, when anyone could speak up, anyone could argue, and thus decisions were forged. Of course, among the tribes, when that gathering was done, argument ended.

No, the Malazans did almost everything differently, their own way. Corabb wasn't bothered by that any more. It was probably a good thing he had held to so many ignorant, outrageous beliefs about them back when he was among the rebels. Otherwise, he might have found it hard to hate the enemy the way he was supposed to, the way it needed to be.

But now I know what it means to be a marine in the Malazan Army, even if the empire's decided we're outlaws or something. Still marines. Still the elite and that's worth fighting for – the soldier at your side, the one in the stretcher, the one on point. Not sure about Smiles, though. Not sure about her at all. Reminds me of Dunsparrow, with that knowing look in her eyes and the way she licks her lips whenever someone talks about killing. And those knives – no, not sure about her at all.

At least they had a good corporal, though. A tough bastard not interested in words. Shield and sword did all Tarr's talking, and Corabb always found himself rushing forward to stand at the man's side in every scrap. Sword-arm side, but a step forward since Tarr used that short-bladed sticker so his parrying was foreshortened and that risked too much close-in stuff, the quick dirty underhanded kind – the style the desert tribes would use against a shield-wall soldier like Tarr – when there was no shield-wall, when it was just the one man, flank exposed and guard too tight. Batter and wail at the shield until his knees bent a fraction more and he ducked in behind and below that shield, left leg forward – then just sidestep and slip round the shield, over or under that stabbing shortsword, to take arm tendons or the unprotected underarm.

Corabb knew he needed to protect Tarr on that side, even if it meant disobeying Fiddler's orders about staying close to Bottle. So long as Bottle looked to be out of trouble, Corabb would move forward, because he understood Tarr and Tarr's way of fighting. Not like Koryk, who was more the desert warrior than any other in these two squads, and what he needed fending his flanks was someone like Smiles, with her flicking knives, crossbow quarrels and the like. Staying back and to one side, out of range of Koryk's frenzied swings of his longsword, and take down the enemy that worked in from the flanks. A good pairing, that.

Cuttle, the miserable old veteran, he had his cussers, and if Bottle got in danger the sapper would take care of things. Was also pretty sharp and quick with the crossbow, an old hand at the release and load-while-you-run.

It was no wonder Seven Cities was conquered the first time round, with Malazan marines in the field. Never mind the T'lan Imass. They'd only been let loose at the Aren uprising, after all.
And if Fiddler's telling the truth, that wasn't the Emperor at all. No, it was Laseen who'd given the order.

Gesler ain't convinced, so the truth is, no-one knows the truth. About Aren. Just like, I suppose, pretty soon no-one will know the truth about Coltaine and the Chain of Dogs, or – spirits below – the Adjunct and the Bonehunters at Y'Ghatan, and at Malaz City.

He felt a chill whisper through him then, as if he'd stumbled onto something profound. About history. As it was remembered, as it was told and retold. As it was lost to lies when the truth proved too unpleasant.
Something, aye…Something…Damn! Lost it!

From the stretcher behind him, Bottle muttered in his sleep, then said, distinctly: ‘He never sees the owl. That's the problem.'

Poor bastard. Raving in delirium. Exhausted. Sleep easy, soldier, we need you.

I need you. Like Leoman never needed me, that's how I need you. Because I'm a marine now. I suppose.

‘Ask the mice,' Bottle said. ‘They'll tell you.' He then mumbled something under his breath, before sighing and saying: ‘If you want to live, pay attention to the shadow. The shadow. The owl's shadow.'

At the other end of the stretcher, Cuttle grunted then shook the handles until Bottle groaned again and edged onto his side. Whereupon the young mage fell silent.

They continued on through the night. And once more, sometime later, they heard detonations in the distance again. These ones to the north.

Oh, they'd stirred 'em awake all right.

 

Shurq Elalle's herbs were getting stale. It had been all right out on the
Undying Gratitude
, on a wind-whipped deck and in the privacy of her cabin. And with a man with no nose for company. But now she found herself in a cramped map room with a half-dozen foreigners and Shake Brullyg, the eponymous king of this miserable little island, and – especially among the women – she could see their nostrils wrinkle as they caught unpleasant aromas in the turgid, over-warm air.

Oh well. If they wanted to deal with her, they'd have to live with it. And be grateful for that ‘living' part. She eyed the Adjunct, who never seemed to want to actually sit down; and although she stood behind the chair she had claimed at one end of the long, scarred table, hands resting on its back, she revealed none of the restlessness one might expect from someone for whom sitting felt like a sentence in a stock in the village square.

When it came to looks, there was not much to this Tavore Paran. Studious drab, sexless indifference, the wardrobe of the uncaring. A woman for whom womanly charms had less value than the lint in the creases of a coin purse. She could have made herself more attractive – almost feminine, in fact – if she so chose. But clearly such charms did not count as valuable assets to the Adjunct's notions of command. And this was interesting, in a vague, academic sort of way. A leader who sought to lead without physical presence, without heroic or lustful or any other sort of imaginable grandeur. And so, with nary a hint of personality, what was Tavore left with?

Well, Shurq considered, there was her mind. Some kind of tactical genius? She wasn't sure of that. From what Shurq had gathered from the fragmented mutterings of Balm's squad, some vast error in judgement had already occurred. Seemed there had been an advance landing of some sort. Elite troops, creeping onto the wild shore and its tangled swamps and forests in the dead of night. Soldiers with a mission to sow confusion and destabilize the Edur rule, and so stir the downtrodden Letherii into uprising.

Tactical genius? More like bad intelligence. The Letherii liked things just fine. This Tavore may well have condemned to slaughter a vital element of her army. They'd burned the transports –
and what was that about? Leaving her own troops with no choice but to go on? That stinks of distrust, of no confidence – aye, that stinks worse than I do. Unless I'm reading it all wrong. Which is a distinct possibility. There's nothing simple about these Malazans.

The Malazan Empire, aye. But nothing like the Letherii Empire, with its petty games of bloodlines and racial hierarchy. No, these Malazans came in all styles indeed. Look at Tavore's aide – a stunning tattooed barbarian whose every movement was sensuality personified. Anyone looking that savage and primitive would be cleaning stalls here in the Letherii Empire. And there was Masan Gilani, another invitation to manly blubbering – oh, how Shurq wished she had skin that luscious, burnished hue, and the graceful, leonine lines of those long legs and full thighs, the swell of unsagging breasts with nipples that made her think of overripe figs –
not that I needed to peek, she's got less modesty than me and that's saying a lot indeed. So, Tavore keeps the pretty ones close. Now that might be a telling hint.

‘What are we waiting for?' Shake Brullyg demanded, close to being drunk enough to start slurring his words. He slouched in the chair at the other end of the long table, directly opposite the Adjunct but with his heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Masan Gilani. The man truly believed that lascivious leers could make a woman swoon with desire. Yet Masan Gilani hid her disgust well, playing it along to keep the pathetic king dangling. The barbaric soldier was following very specific orders, Shurq suspected. To keep Brullyg from getting belligerent. Until they didn't need him any more.

Well, that wouldn't work with her, now, would it? Unless these Malazans had an Ublala Pung hidden nearby. Oh, that would be unfortunate indeed, to see her dissolving into an insatiable rutting animal in front of everyone. That was one secret she had better keep to herself. ‘Relax, Brullyg,' she said. ‘All of this has to do with those huge trimarans that sailed into harbour last night.' She'd love to have one of those, too, although she'd need two crews which meant less coin for everyone –
damned logistics, always getting in the way of my dreams
.