Orb Sceptre Throne (86 page)

One of the troopers turned Hektar over to reveal the man’s chest slashed open. Pink foam blew at his mouth as he laboured to breathe. Bendan slid down to cradle the man’s head on his lap. Hektar’s wide smile returned but the teeth were bright red with blood now. ‘Got one,’ the big man murmured.

‘Yeah. You got one.’

‘All … done … now.’

‘Yeah, Sarge. All done now.’

Bendan sat for a long time holding the dead man. Squad cutters came and tied off his cuts and stopped the bleeding. When they gently pulled at the corpse he batted them away. Having seen it before, the healers moved off without objecting. The hot sun beat down and still Bendan rocked him. Carrion birds gathered, circling over the blasted field of kicked-up dirt and scattered torn bodies. A shadow occluded the sun over Bendan and he looked up, squinting. It was Corporal Little.

She crouched on her haunches at his side, rested a hand on Hektar, then looked to him.

‘Don’t you say it,’ he croaked. ‘Don’t you fucking say anything.’

She looked away, blinking back tears. ‘No,’ she managed, her voice barely audible. ‘I guess not.’

*

‘Sir?’ Fist K’ess said, clearing his throat. Ambassador Aragan did not turn away from where he had stood since the attack, his gaze steady on the shattered field. K’ess himself was not insensate to the horror: the drifting smoke, the broken bodies lying in droves around craters blasted into the loose talus of the slope. He almost turned away, imagining that firestorm of blasts and the fragmented rock chips lancing like shrapnel through unprotected flesh. What disturbed him the most, however, was the silence. How eerie it was; nothing like any of the many fields of battle he’d known. No cries or moans of wounded echoed over the slopes. No calls for water. No outbursts or hopeless cursing.

Indeed, all the murmured sounds of stricken awe, all the curses, the moans and quiet weeping came now from the Malazan troops behind him. And he wondered: what was worse? To have died in that ill-fated charge, or to have to live now having witnessed it?

It took a strong effort of will to tear his gaze from that appalling field of slaughter and he glanced back to Captain Fal-ej, the woman’s arm and chest bloodied and wrapped in stiff drying cloth. She signed to him to speak again. ‘Sir,’ he repeated, a touch louder. ‘The Moranth have landed. A contingent awaits.’

The ambassador appeared to gather himself. He turned, blinking and wiping at his eyes. He cleared his throat against the back of his hand. ‘Yes. The Moranth,’ he said, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘Thank you, Fist. Let’s go and see what they want, shall we?’

As they clambered down the rocks K’ess was surprised to see a man alongside a Moranth Silver and a battered Red. What was more, the ambassador and the Red actually embraced.

‘Fist K’ess, Captain Fal-ej,’ said Aragan, ‘may I introduce Torn, our attaché.’

Torn gestured to the Silver. ‘Galene, an Elect. What you might call a priestess. And this is Torvald, Nom of Nom, member of the Darujhistan Council.’

K’ess and Fal-ej bowed. ‘Councillor, an honour.’

The Darujhistani aristocrat grimaced. He looked shaky and sickly pale. ‘Well, it would seem the Council has been suspended.’

‘None the less,’ Aragan murmured. He gestured aside to another officer, calling, ‘Captain Dreshen!’

The young officer jogged up, bowing. Aragan held out a hand and the man dug in his shoulder bag to pull out an object about the size of a mace, wrapped in black silk. He handed it to Aragan who held it in both hands, studying it, lips pursed in thought. He looked up. ‘Attaché Torn, Councillor Nom. I believe we need to negotiate.’ He gestured towards the woods. The Moranth Red bowed.

‘Yes, Ambassador.’ He turned to Torvald. ‘Councillor …’

The three walked off into the forest. Fist K’ess faced the Silver, Galene. ‘What of the prisoners?’

The Moranth female tilted her bright helm. ‘Prisoners?’

‘Some of the Seguleh survived. Badly wounded, but alive. Some few threw down their swords.’

‘Surprising, that.’

K’ess rubbed an arm as if cold. ‘Well – it might just have been the shock.’

‘Perhaps. What of it?’

‘Well … we could hold them until such time as they can be repatriated.’

‘I doubt they will be, Fist. But, yes, if you wish. We have no interest in them.’

‘Very good.’ He bowed.
Elect, Torn named her – one of those who guide their people?

When the Silver had gone K’ess introduced the two captains, then eyed the woods.
Negotiate? Aragan, you’ve got balls
.

Captain Fal-ej cleared her throat. ‘Fist. Forgive me … but we’re in no position to negotiate anything.’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Then …?’

K’ess raised his chin to the blasted field of craters and thrown dirt. ‘Look …’

Malazan rankers were silently spreading out among the fallen torn bodies, collecting around the mangled corpses. Out came cloaks and blankets and other odds and ends to wrap the bodies. Then out came saboteur shovels and picks to hack individual shallow graves out of the thin rocky soil. Some even took advantage of the craters the munitions had blasted to site their pits.

Then one by one, respectful hands clenching the tied-off cloth at head and feet and sides, the bodies were laid in their graves. Only the noise of shovels clattering from stones sounded from the valley. Each pit was covered and the troopers stood still for a long moment, heads bowed.

Watching and observing his own silence, K’ess thought back to that wrenching moan of pain that had swept through the massed ranks as realization came of what was about to strike. It had beed an awful, hopeless sound. The one that soldiers give when they see unavoidable death descending over a compatriot, for, in that instant, the Seguleh had become – if not friends – then brothers and sisters of the battlefield.

Now he did not have to wonder at their thoughts. Once they may have been,
Thank the gods that ain’t me
. Or,
Damn you to Hood’s lost Abyss
. Now he knew they shared what he himself felt as a knife point in his heart:
No one should die like that. If this is war then I want no more to do with it
.

To one side the captured Seguleh, a bare handful out of the four hundred, sat or stood, unarmed, still masked, watching while their dead were buried. K’ess could not even imagine what was going through their minds.

Clearing his throat, he turned to the officers. ‘Captain Fal-ej … I believe what Aragan is hoping to do is stop the Moranth from doing to Darujhistan what they just did here in this valley. Reducing the entire city to smoking rubble.’

‘By the Seven,’ Fal-ej murmured, falling back on her old faith. ‘That would be unforgivable. We cannot allow that.’

K’ess let out a long pained breath. ‘It looks as though we no longer have much say in the matter.’

‘But, Fist … over a half-million live there.’

‘Yes, Captain … Yes.’

The contempt of the cultured elite of Darujhistan for the manners and customs of the Seguleh of the far south is well known. One Council member famously remarked that what these Seguleh fail to understand is that words are the most powerful weapons of all.

A Seguleh informed of this argument responded: ‘Then when he is silent he is useless.’

Sulerem of Mengal

LIKE SMALL BLESSINGS
moments of calm occasionally descended unbidden into the punishing windstorm of Ebbin’s thoughts. During these respites he was able, at least briefly, to gather his scattered identity and reconstitute his thoughts.

Sometimes he would find himself in a recurring dream of the gold-masked figure standing at the edge of Majesty Hill overlooking Darujhistan. Either the ancient terror allowed him to join him there in reviewing these memories, or he was simply too insignificant to matter. Each time Ebbin was unwilling to creep up to the overlook, for he knew what would confront him there: the city in flames, screams, mass murder, carnage. The fall of a civilization.

After many of these dreams, or waking nightmares – having wandered here, or been drawn, or allowed to discover him here – Ebbin finally dared speak: ‘Why do you always come here?’

‘Lessons learned,’ the masked and cloaked figure answered.

‘You seek to avoid this.’

‘I seek to avoid a paradox. Escape the inescapable. I wish to complete the circle without suffering its fate.’

‘Each time it has ended this way.’

‘So far.’

‘So many would-be tyrants,’ Ebbin breathed, saddened.

The graven gold face turned his way. ‘Still you do not fully understand.’

Emboldened, Ebbin ventured: ‘What is there to understand? You failed once, you shall fail again.’

‘Once? No, scholar. Evidently the truth is even more difficult for you to swallow than that. In truth, I have failed countless times.’

‘What?’

The taunting secretive curve carved on the lips of the mask seemed to be verging on a full smile. ‘Each time it has been me, scholar. In truth, there has been but one Tyrant.’

The raging winds of Ebbin’s mind crept closer. Walls of impenetrable black closing in. ‘But … that cannot be. What of Raest? What of him?’

‘Ah, yes. Raest. Too crude in his methods. I have refined and perfected his tools. Lessons learned, scholar.’

Ebbin clenched his skull as if to hold it from flying apart. ‘Why tell me this?’

‘Give up, scholar. Yield. There can be but one outcome.’

‘No! Never. I … never.’ And he fled. Hands pressed to his skull, he ran from the ledge and laughter chased him. The laughter melded with the howling of the winds that came sweeping in to toss him, spinning and flying, into countless shattered fragments.

Jan could not get used to being confronted wherever he turned by near replicas of the Legate’s gold mask. The ladies of the court held theirs on long gold stems that they raised to their faces. The men’s rested on the bridges of their noses, held there by fine thread that ran behind their heads.

Part of Jan wished to slap them all off. Just as he still could not help twitching upon meeting so many directly challenging, even haughty, stares from armed men.

These are no longer your people
, his inner voice said to him.
These are no longer your ways
.

Across the court Palla, the Sixth, signed to him:
Any word?

None
.

It has been long
.

The mountains are vast
.

The Moranth have never been shy
.

True
. A tentative throat-clearing at his side. Jan turned, knowing who to expect: the Mouthpiece. ‘Yes?’

‘A word, Second.’

They crossed to the edge of the court where a pillared colonnade stretched all along one wall. It was the favoured locale for much whispering. ‘Yes?’

‘Send a runner to your people in the south. Have them all relocate here to the city.’

Jan’s gaze snapped to the masked figure on his throne, his hands resting lightly atop a white stone armrest to either side. ‘All?’

‘Yes. All. It seems strange notions and distortions have crept into your teachings over the years. It would be best if I took over all future training.’

‘You,’ Jan said, his gaze fixed on the broad oval mask.

‘Yes.’

Jan nearly fainted in the animal urge to draw and slice.
No! The burden is yours! Endure!
He allowed himself a shuddering intake of breath while his eyes slitted almost closed. ‘Very well,’ he grated through clenched jaws. ‘It shall be as you order.’

‘Of course.’ The Mouthpiece, Jan noted, appeared more sweaty and pallid than ever before.

He turned his back, signing to Palla:
We must talk
.

At a side entrance he came to the two private guards. Seeing him, they jumped to attention, saluting. ‘Don’t you worry there, sir,’ one said, ‘we’ll keep a watch out. Ain’t that so, Scorch?’ He elbowed his companion.