Blood and Bone (6 page)

Spite continued: ‘I want you two to go ashore and reconnoitre.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And do
not
enter the circle of the dolmens, yes?’

‘Dolmens?’ Sour asked. ‘Is that what them pillar things is called?’

‘Yes,’ Spite answered as if addressing the village idiot. ‘That’s what they’re called. Don’t enter their formation. Range around. I want to know who’s in the immediate vicinity. Do you think you two can manage that?’

‘Oh yes, ma’am.’

‘Well and good. That is something at least.’ And she turned away.

They watched her walk off; Murk could swear she put an extra swing in her hips as she went. At his side Sour gave a heavy sigh.

‘They just go on and on …’ he murmured.

Irritated that this sweaty, unwashed, bow-legged fellow should be giving voice to his own thoughts, Murk elbowed him none too gently. ‘Let’s go.’

They waited until the launch was completely loaded then climbed down a rope and wood ladder. Sour carried down a chicken in a wicker basket that he handed to a sailor. ‘There you go.’

The man grabbed it from him while mouthing something under his breath. The two lay down on rolled tent canvas near the bows, crossed their arms, and shut their eyes. The sailors and mercenaries readied the oars.

As the bows ground up on the beach a light misting rain began to drift over them. Murk and Sour jumped down to the wet sands and walked up the steep shore. More of the crew of mercenaries, who numbered about fifty in all, wandered down to help unload. Yusen appeared and waved the two over to him. When they reached the man in his leather and mail hauberk, mail skirting, iron greaves and vambraces, helmet under his arm, Murk fought an urge to salute.

He looked them up and down with barely concealed distaste on his lined mouth and in his slate-blue eyes. ‘What do you two think you’re doing?’

‘Reconnoitring,’ Murk supplied.

‘I have scouts out.’

Sour made a show of touching a finger to the side of his nose. ‘Not like us.’

The man rolled his eyes to the thick cloud cover; then, peering about, he allowed, grudgingly, ‘Well, from the looks of this place I’d be right careful, if I were you.’

Murk almost saluted at that, murmuring instead, ‘Our thanks … Cap’n.’

The man’s gaze hardened and he dismissed them with a jerk of his head. ‘Get going.’

‘Oh, aye aye.’

They left the sands behind to enter a forest of trees the likes of which Murk had never seen before: some held wide leaves almost as broad as shields, others thick waxy ones like hard bullets. ‘What d’ya think?’ Sour asked as they walked. ‘Fourth Army?’

‘Naw. Seventh.’

‘Maybe. Long as he weren’t Fifth. Anyways …’ Sour sniffed the air. ‘What d’ya think?’ he repeated.

Murk shrugged, wiped the misted rain from his face. ‘Hardly anyone. Just a few fisherfolk.’

‘Yeah … I think so.’ Sour sat against the base of a tree and stretched out his legs. ‘Is it noon?’

Murk eyed the other forest just to the north: a forest of grey pillars, dolmens, darkening in the gathering rain. ‘See the ruins when we came in?’

Sour’s eyes were shut. ‘Yeah. Damned big city.’ His eyes popped open. ‘Say! Think there’s treasure ’n’ such there? Maybe we should have a poke around.’

Murk favoured his partner with his most scornful glare. ‘There’s no treasure lying around ruined cities. All that’s just silly troubadour’s songs. Naw – it’s all gone. Just dust and rot and dead spiders.’

Sour shuddered. ‘Gods, spiders. Did you hafta mention spiders? I got feeling all shivery when you said that. Don’t like it at all.’

Murk’s attention had remained on the dolmens. ‘I know what you mean.’

Sour cocked his head, one eye screwed up shut. ‘But maybe there’s tombs ’n’ such. Buried loot. How ’bout that?’

‘Buried?’ Murk continued to study the maze of stone pillars. ‘Yeah. That would be a whole ’nother question, wouldn’t it …’

Sour’s gaze followed his partner’s. ‘Aw, for the love of …’ The crab-like fellow gave a great shiver. ‘Bad news that. Knew it the moment I clapped eyes on it.’ He bit at a dirty fingernail. ‘Has to be
it
, though, don’t it? Any other place and I’d jump right in. But there … what a damned shame.’

Murk spat aside. ‘Aye. Gonna be keep-your-bags-packed scary.’

‘You’re startin’ to sound like me,’ Sour complained.

Murk grimaced.
Great gods, now there’s reason enough for me to jump right in
.

It was dusk when Murk tapped a snoring Sour to wake him. He motioned aside, mouthing, ‘Here she is.’ Sour nodded. He smacked his lips and stretched. The two shadowed their employer, skulking from towering dolmen to dolmen. The woman was pacing a slow encirclement of the entire installation. As she walked she held a Warren open and the two mages had to glance away wincing and shading their eyes from the powers summoned and manipulated in her hands. The sculpted energy remained behind as a flickering and pulsing wall of power.

They followed, peering round the pillars, which consisted of stone blocks fitted one on top of the other, tapering to a blunt tip.

‘You see what I see?’ Sour fairly yelled to be heard.

Head turned away, eyes slit, Murk answered, ‘Cutting it off from everything! Nothing’s getting past that wall o’ wards and seals!’

Together, the two suddenly glanced aside where the rippling barrier of folded Warren-energies stood between them and the outside.

‘
Shit!
’ they mouthed as one and both pelted for the opposite side of the maze of standing stones. As he ran past row after row of the columns, Murk noted how they appeared to possess a slight curve, and he realized that they inscribed immense nested circles, one inside the other. Sour was ahead, his worn shoes kicking up sand, only to stop so suddenly that Murk almost ran over him. Righting himself, he saw what had put a halt to his partner’s flight. It was an open circular court or plaza, empty and utterly featureless, lying at the centre of the dolmens, made of what appeared to be raked gravel.

The shortest way was straight across, but one glance was all Murk needed to see that that was no option. His mage-sight revealed an entirely different version superimposed upon the apparently empty plaza. Something writhed and coursed under the surface just as a monstrous sea-serpent might thrash beneath ocean waves. Murk hit his partner’s shoulder and gestured aside. Together they took off round the plaza’s border. They reached the opposite side of the massive ruin long before Spite appeared, tracing her ward. They watched her complete the intricate and blindingly powerful ritual while they lay flat behind a dune.

Sour slid further into cover and wiped a sleeve across his slick face. Murk joined him. ‘So … maybe we should just save time and run off now?’ Sour asked.

Murk rested his arms on his knees. ‘Naw. I’m kinda curious.’

Sour’s gaze slit almost closed. ‘Curious?
You’re
curious. You mean your wretched Shadow patron’s all curious, ain’t that what you mean!’

‘Oh, and you’re sayin’ little Miss Enchantress ain’t!’

Sour blew a nostril to empty it. ‘Don’t need to be a fortune-teller to know where this is gonna end. With us handed our heads!’

Murk looked to the darkening sky, now clearing of the thick clouds. ‘You know – when you predict the same damned thing over and over it kinda loses its credibility.’

‘Call for rain long enough and you’re bound to be right.’

Murk threw open his arms. ‘Now that doesn’t even make any goddamned sense!’

Sour’s wall-eyed gaze shifted to right and left. ‘It will … eventually.’

‘Would you stop that!’

‘You lovebirds finished your little spat?’ a new voice asked from the cover of nearby brush.

‘Whosat?’ Sour called, sinking even lower.

A fellow straightened from the thicket and approached to squat next to them. It was one of Yusen’s scouts. The man wore leathers, long-knives at his sides, and a plain and battered Malazan-issue iron helmet that brought back plenty of memories to Murk. None of them happy. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he demanded – he was of the opinion that when caught off guard an aggressive front can often compensate.

The scout shifted a twig from one side of his mouth to the other while eyeing them. ‘Cap’n wants your report.’

‘What report?’ Sour asked.

‘On what you’ve sniffed out.’

‘We ain’t seen nothing,’ Sour answered, crossing his arms.

The man removed the twig from his mouth, studied it, then tucked it back in. ‘Yeah. I see that.’

Murk wanted to slap the damned thing from the fellow’s mouth. ‘Listen, merc. What’s your name?’

‘Sweetly,’ the man answered, his face flat of any emotion.

‘Sweetly,’ Murk echoed. ‘What’s your name – Sweetly?’

The scout glanced about the darkening shadows of the dunes and pockets of low dry brush. His gaze returned to them. The twig sank as his mouth drew down. ‘ ’Sright. Now c’mon. You two got a report to make.’ He jerked his head towards the coast and started off.

Murk and Sour followed along. ‘Oh look at me,’ Sour grumbled sotto voce as they walked. ‘I’m a tough guy. I chew twigs. Look out for me.’

‘You just don’t like meetin’ someone named Sweetly,’ Murk told him, smiling.

Sour’s grumbling descended into dark mouthings.

They found a camp pitched just inland, sheltered from the winds by a high dune. Pickets led them to a central tent, currently more of a simple awning as its canvas sides were still raised. Yusen ducked from beneath. Sweetly gave a tilt of his head then ambled off.

The mercenary captain regarded them from within the deep nests of wrinkles surrounding his eyes then drew a heavy breath and crossed his arms.

‘What?’ Sour said, bristling.

‘Let’s have it,’ the man sighed.

‘She’s interested in the dolmens,’ Murk answered.

‘Dolmens?’

‘The standing stones. That’s why we’re here.’

Yusen got a pained look on his face. He lowered his eyes to study the ground for a time. ‘Damn. I was hoping that wasn’t the case.’

Sour glanced to Murk. ‘Now what?’

‘Now you two stay on her good side, that’s what,’ Yusen answered.

Again, Murk almost saluted. ‘Yes, Cap’n,’ he said. The man shot him a searching sideways glance then grimaced his impatience and waved them away. They ambled off.

After searching for a while Murk stopped a mercenary and asked, ‘Which one’s our tent?’

‘That one,’ the woman answered, pointing to a pile of poles and bundled canvas. Then she walked away.

‘Yeah, very funny,’ Murk called after her. He waved to Sour. ‘Looks like you’ll have to put it up.’

‘Me? Whaddya mean, me?
You
put it up.’

‘No, you.’

‘You.’

‘I ain’t.’

‘Well, I sure ain’t.’

‘Both of you put it up!’ a mercenary bellowed from the next tent. ‘Or I’ll put them tent-poles up where they don’t belong!’

Both offered choice gestures towards the side of the tent then knelt to the damp canvas. ‘Just like the old days, hey?’ Sour murmured.

‘Yeah. Unfortunately.’

* * *

K’azz, it turned out, fully intended to go alone. He only acquiesced to a token guard when Shimmer told him flat out they would come regardless. In the end she chose two of the remaining Avowed mages, Lor-sinn and Gwynn, and three of their best swords: Cole, Turgal, and Amatt.

Tarkhan, captain of the Third Company, would be left behind to command Stratem. Shimmer was not happy with this arrangement as the Wickan tribesman, a formidable knife-fighter, had been among the top lieutenants of Cowl’s ‘Veils’. Though, she could admit, the intervening years of commanding the Third through various contracts across the world did appear to have tempered the man. And K’azz had every confidence in him. But then, that was one thing K’azz always did well – give and instil confidence.

Seeing the surviving Avowed gathered together in Haven was a pleasure for Shimmer – and at the same time a melancholy reunion. A pleasure to see old friends; heartbreaking for all the absent faces and the painful thinness of the ranks. Her count put the total number at less than seventy. Yet that number varied as the occasional lost Avowed would suddenly appear in Stratem, having made their way from imprisonment, service to some patron, or from simply being stranded in this or that land. And there was always Cal-Brinn’s Fourth Company as well: gone missing in Assail lands but possibly still surviving if Bars’ reappearance was any indication. Of the near forty Avowed who chose to follow Skinner into exile, well, they would meet them soon enough.

A week later, the foreigners’ vessel, the
Serpent
, was readied and fully victualled. When all had been stowed away and the vessel started south under quarter-sail, Rutana turned to K’azz and growled resentfully, ‘I was expecting some sort of an army yet here you come nearly alone. This is an insult to my mistress. Better not to have answered at all.’

Again, to Shimmer’s eyes, K’azz displayed remarkable forbearance in merely quirking his lips. ‘I understand your mistress is something of a seer – surely then she knew this when she sent you …’ and, bowing in the face of the sour woman’s mutterings, he added, ‘I will be in my cabin.’