Stonewielder (20 page)

Shul bowed, accepting the point. ‘As you say, Commander. However, this time the Emperor has offered a contract to the Moranth. And they have delivered.’ He looked to Halat. ‘Liaison?’

The Moranth Blue bowed. Aqua hues churned over the polished plates of his armour as he moved. ‘We will break the Mare blockade, Greymane,’ he said, his voice hollow within his masking helm. ‘That is our promise.’

‘You are certain?’

‘Or we will die trying. Such is our word.’

‘Then – I accept the commission.’

Shul saluted crisply. ‘Very good, Fist. Your invasion fleet is assembling off the coast of Kartool.’

‘Are
you
the insane one?’ Kyle demanded the moment they had time alone in the empty crew quarters. ‘How could you accept – after the way they treated you?’

Squeezed on to a bench, the big man raised an accepting hand. ‘Yes, Kyle. I understand.’ He examined an empty carved wood cup, almost invisible in his wide shovel-like hand. ‘Believe me, I used to feel the same way.’ He took a great breath, turned the cup in small circles on the table before him. ‘But I’m older now. That attack from the Chosen, and the Malazans finding me now … I’ll never be able to hide. And perhaps I shouldn’t have run in the first place. I had people in Korel. People who depended on me. One fellow, Ruthan he was called, he was ready to fight, but I hope he followed my warning. When I was forced to leave … well, it’s always gnawed at me. Like a betrayal. I’ve sometimes found myself wondering – are they still alive?’

Kyle filled Greymane’s cup and one for himself from a jug of watered wine, and, ducking under hammocks, sat. He studied his friend across the table. The man’s long dirty hair, now the hue of iron in this dim light, hung almost to the table. He was unshaven, his wide jowls grey with bristles. Old. The man looks old, and tired. Was this some sort of misguided effort to fix past failures? But from what he understood the failures were not of his making … Still, it was obvious he felt responsibility.

Responsibilities. Duties
. Why was it that those who took on such burdens did so of their own accord? Kyle supposed that, in the end, those were the only kind that truly mattered. Like his sitting here now across from his friend. No one had asked. He need not accompany the man. His hand slid to the sword at his side. Burdens willingly taken on, he decided, come to define the bearer.

‘So you are in charge then?’ Kyle finally said into the relative silence of the creaking hull planks and the waves surging past.

‘Of all land operations, yes. Once we arrive – Hood! Should we arrive.’

‘But not the fleet?’

‘No.’

‘Who is?’

Greymane offered a half-smile, his pale sapphire eyes holding a
tempered humour. ‘You will have a chance to meet a living legend, Kyle. The name will mean nothing to you seeing as you’re a damned foreigner, but the naval assault will be commanded by Admiral Nok.’

But Greymane was wrong. Kyle had heard of
him
.

Master of violence!
And violence mastered.
Companion to darkness.

Hail the Warlord!
Hammer fell
and fist heavy.

What ancient seams
Does he mine when
Night thoughts turn
To fault, fracture,
And that which must be done?

Lament for the Warlord
Fisher Kel Tath

C
OURTIERS IN BRIGHT FINERY ONCE CROWDED THE RECEPTION
hall of Fortress Paliss, capital of the once sovereign Kingdom of Rool. Tapestries lined its stone walls. Long tables offered up delicacies and wines from distant exotic lands in this, the most powerful state on Fist – rival to Korelri.

Once.

Now, the broad hall stood empty, dark and cold. A single occupant – other than his guards – sat at one bare table, his back to a blazing conflagration roaring within a stone fireplace four paces across.

Ussü entered and crossed the wide unlit hall. Shadows danced over him, flickering from the distant fire. His master, Yeull ’ul Taith, commander of what remained of the Malazan Sixth Army,
Overlord of Fist, sat as no more than a silhouette of night, awaiting him.

With Ussü walked Borun, Black Moranth, leader of a contingent of that race shipwrecked on Fist some fifteen years ago and now Yeull’s second. Commander of what the locals cursed as Yeull’s ‘Black Hands’.

Ussü noted how Borun’s armoured boots grated on the stone while his footfalls came in comparative silence. He looked down to his leather sandals almost hidden beneath layered robes.
Quiet. Hidden. And so it has always been. Who was to know that he, Ussü, once a mage of little note within the Empire, now pursued power by other, darker, means?

They halted before their commander. Yes, commander,
now
. Yeull ’ul Taith. Overlord. High Fist, after a fashion. First went Greymane – ousted on account of his outrageous leanings. Then that Imperial-appointed governor – what had his name been? Found dead. Then Fist Udara – but her suicide had appeared genuine. And now Yeull – clinging on like a man gripping a plank in a storm. Terrified of betrayal. Yet hanging on just the same, even more terrified of letting go.

Yeull straightened, a thick bearhide wrap falling from his shoulders. His long black hair hung wet with sweat over a pale scarred face. Dark eyes darted between Ussü and Borun. ‘Yes? What is it?’

‘News, m’lord. Of a kind.’

Yeull leaned in his tall chair, draped an arm over its back. ‘Look at you two.’ He gestured to Ussü: ‘White,’ then to Borun, ‘and black.’

Ussü favoured pale hues such as ivory and cream. And his hair was long and thoroughly grey. While Borun was, of course, black.

‘Is one to suggest caution, the other haste?’

‘M’lord …’

‘Is one to prove trustworthy, the other … well … not so trustworthy?’

‘M’lord!’

The dark eyes sharpened. ‘Overlord.’

Ussü bowed. ‘Yes, Overlord.’

‘What is it?’ He poured himself a glass of wine from an earthenware decanter. ‘Is it cold in here? I feel cold.’

As he stood before the roaring bonfire sweat now prickled Ussü’s underarms, chest and face. ‘No, m— Overlord. I am not cold.’

‘No? You’re not?’ He tossed back the glass in one swallow. ‘I am. To the bones.’

‘He is calling for you.’

Yeull looked up from studying the empty glass. ‘What? Someone calling me? Who?’

‘The prisoner,’ Borun said, his voice a coarse growl.

Yeull set down the glass carefully, straightened in his seat. ‘Ah.
Him
. What does he want?’

‘He must have news for us, High Fist. Something to offer, in any case.’

‘It is cold – I swear it is cold.’ Yeull turned aside. ‘More wood for the fire.’

Ussü turned a quick look to Borun but could see nothing within the vision slit of his lowered visor. These Moranth and their armour! The man must be sweltering.

‘So?’ Yeull demanded. ‘Why are you here speaking to me then? Speak to
him
.’

‘He will only talk to you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, High Fist.’

‘Out of the question.’ The High Fist drew the bearhide cloak tighter about his shoulders.

Ussü suppressed his irritation. ‘We have been through this before, High Fist. It must be you. None other.’

The man was looking aside, his gaze distant, almost empty. ‘It will be cold down there. So far below.’

‘We will bring torches.’

‘What’s that? Torches? Yes. Fire. We must bring fire.’

They walked the dark empty halls of Fortress Paliss. Guards – all Malazan regulars – saluted and unlocked doors to the deeper passageways. Ussü noted the many grey beards among them. They were none of them getting any younger, including himself. Who would carry on? They had trained and recruited thousands of soldiers from among the Rool and Skolati citizens, organized an army of over seventy thousand, but hardly any of the locals held a rank above captain.

Original Malazan officers constituted the ruling body. It was, in effect, the permanent rule of an occupying military elite. Yet their generation was passing away. Who would take up the sceptre – or the mace, in this instance – of rulership? Most had children, grown to men and women now, but these formed the new pampered aristocracy, not the least interested in service, or the world beyond
their own sprawling estates. No, it seemed to Ussü more surely with every passing year that the local Fistian and Korelri policy was simply to ignore these invaders until they faded away. As surely they would, soldier by soldier, until nothing was left but for mouldering armour and dusty pennants from forgotten distant lands high on a wall.

The stalemate of initial invasion had ossified into formalized relations. It seemed that as far as the Korelri were concerned the Malazans simply ran the island of Fist now, as had the last Roolian dynasty before them. A mere change in administration. Frustration was not the word. Failure, perhaps, came closer to describing the acid bite in Ussü’s stomach and soul whenever his thoughts turned to it. He had failed his superiors, each commander in turn, failed in attaining his one assigned task: achieving Malazan domination in this theatre. Decades ago, before the invasion fleet left Unta, Kellanved himself had set the task upon him.

He remembered his surprise and terror that day, so long ago now, when the old ogre had taken his arm and walked him out along Unta’s harbour mole. Dancer had followed; how the man’s gaze had tracked their every move! ‘Ussü,’ Kellanved had said, ‘I will tell you this: in the end conquering is not about what territory or resources you control … it is about recasting the deck entirely.’

And he had mouthed something insipid about certainly meaning to and the Emperor had pulled his arm free to jab his walking stick impatiently to the south. ‘Everywhere, for every region – for every person – hands are dealt from the Dragons deck. To create true fundamental change you must force a complete reshuffling and recasting of all hands. Turn your thoughts to that.’ And the man had smiled slyly then, leaning on the silver hound’s head walking stick, staring out over the water and Ussü remembered thinking:
As you have, wherever you have gone
.

They reached the lowest levels of construction. A locked iron door barred entrance to deeper tunnels carved from the native rock. Here Ussü used a key from his own belt to unlock the portal; no guards remained. Beyond, Borun and Yeull lit torches from lanterns and continued; Ussü locked the door behind them.

He believed these rough winding ways dated back to before the establishment of Paliss itself as a state capital, or even as a settlement. It seemed to him the dust their footfalls kicked up carried with it a tang of smoke and sulphur. Perhaps a remnant of the immense crater lake that dominated the big island.

The torch Yeull carried spluttered and hissed as the man shivered
ahead of Ussü, muttering beneath his breath as if in conversation with himself. Ussü wondered, not for the first time, just when a new overlord might be necessary. Not he or Borun; both had found their place. One of the remaining division commanders perhaps, Genarin, or Tesh kel. Yeull had never been popular with the men, given as he was to brooding. But he’d been getting less and less
reliable
of late.

Borun led the way into a chamber carved from stone. Along one side stood a row of smaller alcoves, each barred.
Cells
. And around the main room instruments of …
punishment and persuasion
.

Just as Ussü had found them so long ago when the fortress fell. Very bloodthirsty, that last Roolian dynasty. And forgotten in the most distant pit, enduring, perhaps older even than that generation itself, the last occupant. Had he been overlooked during those last days of panic as the Malazan fist closed? Or had he already been forgotten – slipping from the living memory of humanity as dynasty followed dynasty in their cycles of rebellion and decline? Who was to say? He himself refused to enlighten them.

Borun stopped at a great iron sarcophagus some three paces in length lying within a metal framework upon the bare stone. He set his torch in a brazier, then took hold of a tall iron wheel next to the frame. This he ratcheted, his breath harsh with effort. As the wheel turned long iron spikes slowly withdrew from holes set all down the sides of the sarcophagus, and in rows across its front.

When the ends of these countless iron spikes emerged from within the stained openings a thick black fluid, blood of a kind, dripped viscous and thick from their needle tips. A slow rumbling exhalation of breath sounded then. It stirred the dust surrounding the sarcophagus.

Ussü bent over the coffin. ‘Cherghem? You can hear me?’

A voice no more substantial than that breath sounded from within. I
hear you
.

‘You say you have information for us? You sense something?’

Food. Water
.

‘Not until you speak.’

Water
.

Ussü took a ladle from a nearby bucket and dashed its contents across the spike holes in the iron masking the head of the casket. ‘There. You have water. Now speak!’